Paperwork and NYC Real Estate

The amount of paperwork that one must complete to be a government employee is out of this world. I was going to be working for the Labor Board as co-op which is essentially a well-paid intern, why on earth am I listing every person I lived with over the past seven years of my life??? If I was going to be the next FBI agent, fair, let me fill out every bit of paperwork you can throw at me, but the Labor Board, seriously? I have to say that completing the paperwork and pre-work requirements was more difficult than my 30 page grad school essays.  The job offer was made in February and by the time April rolled around I hadn’t even heard that I had passed the background screen. It’s a good thing I had a lot of faith in myself because mid-April I took a bus trip to NYC to apartment hunt.

I had been to NYC a few times. However, these were on bus field trips in high school and college. These trips only included the touristy side of Manhattan and I had never ventured into any of the other boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx or many neighborhoods in Manhattan. I cannot even describe the hassle that went into finding an apartment that was available for longer than a few days. Being that I was in Western PA, it was next to impossible to find something two states away. I had found many apartments that were great, not affordable, but doable and they were gone almost instantly.  When there is a good deal on an apartment, that shit goes faster than Paul Walker did in his last Porsche ride.  

Lucky for me, my current director at work was from Brooklyn so he clued me in on the hot and not so hot aka ghetto, don’t live here, would get raped, stabbed or kidnapped neighborhoods.  From what I Googled, a lot of neighborhoods in Brooklyn were cute and up and coming. Since I was an up and coming New Yorker, I figured I would give the BK a shot. I was able to set-up appointments on a Saturday and planned my bus trip.

Arriving in NYC by Megabus is one of the most frustrating experiences. Since I wasn’t familiar with the city, being dropped off in the middle of it with no clue where I was heading was not ideal.  Since I have spent a lot of my childhood driving around the country with my family, I became quite a whiz with maps. Thank little baby Jesus for my smartphone and Google Maps that Saturday because I have no idea how I would have maneuvered the subways or the busy streets of my soon to be new home.