Arcane Gazebo

Arcane Gazebo meets T-Rex (at MoCCA)

One of the great things about living in New York City is that I'll frequently read on the internet about some event, and then realize, "Hey, I could go there!" For example, the MoCCA¹ Art Festival this weekend. I've never been to a comics convention before, but with it being only a few subway stops away I didn't really have a good reason not to go.

My primary goal was to acquire a signed copy of the Dinosaur Comics book, and I was not disappointed in the outcome:

I also got a copy of the new annotated Wondermark book, because it looked nice and also because Wondermark is fantastic. Randall Munroe (of xkcd) was doing free sketches, but I foolishly didn't have anything for people to sketch on. He and David Malki ! (who does Wondermark) were next to each other, and each had a sign offering to punch the other for $1. (I even saw it happen while I was standing there.)

Outside of webcomics I knew almost none of the exhibitors (it was very much an independent, small press show), although there was obviously a lot of talent on display. I made sure to walk around and look at everything, but it's hard to know just by looking at covers what's good. I did see Bryan Lee O'Malley, the author of Scott Pilgrim which has recently become my new favorite print comic. (It's kind of a hipster Ranma 1/2 with copious references to classic NES games. Anyone here who reads comics should absolutely check it out.)

Normally when I think of comics shows I think of something like the San Diego Comic Con² with everyone in ridiculous costumes and big lines at the popular booths. This wasn't at all like that: very low-key, no costumes and you never had to wait in line to talk to anybody (unless it was Randall Munroe, or Michel Gondry who turned up for a signing). Overall it was a fun outing and I need to keep an eye out for more stuff like this going on in the city.

Meanwhile, some of my coworkers are going to the actual Nerd Prom and I am tempted to join them... of course, I'll need a costume.

¹ Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art
² A.k.a. "Nerd Prom"

The skyscraper as climbing wall

We had the TV on at work during lunch and managed to see Alain Robert scaling the New York Times building. The feed cut away before he reached the top, which was sad because we were all hoping to see the greeting from the welcoming committee of police officers standing on the roof—this was not an authorized ascent. However, I have to assume the dialogue went something like this:

NYPD: I do not suppose you could speed things up?
Robert: If you're in such a hurry, you could lower a rope, or a tree branch, or find something useful to do.
NYPD: I could do that. In fact, I've got some rope up here. But I do not think that you will accept my help, since I am only waiting around to arrest you.
Robert: That does put a damper on our relationship.

Meanwhile, some dude from Brooklyn thought this was sufficiently awesome that he went out and climbed it himself hours later. Pretty soon there'll be guided tours up the side of the Times building...

Tales from the Manhattan housing market

On Saturday the New York Times published an article entitled "Finding Your First Apartment in New York City", about two weeks too late for me to actually make use of it. However, the advice in the article can mostly be found easily online, so I didn't feel like I missed out. They emphasize not going into the search with unrealistic expectations—I actually had the opposite experience, where after years of hearing horror stories about Manhattan housing, I didn't expect to be able to rent anything larger than a closet and was pleasantly surprised at what was actually available in my price range.

Anyway, the Manhattan rental market is quite different from most in a few ways. Obviously a lot of it's driven by the fact that a Manhattan address is highly sought-after, leading to a very low vacancy rate (sometimes quoted as 0.5%, although I think it's higher at the moment) and vastly higher rents than in other U.S. cities. I'd heard from several sources that competition for any given apartment can be fierce, and it's best to apply for a unit on the spot if it looks good, since it may not be available later. However, right now (maybe due to the recession) this didn't seem to be the case. There were a surprising number of vacancies, a number of landlords were offering "specials" with a discount of several hundred dollars per month, and I felt comfortable taking a couple days to consider my options without the units I liked being snapped up.

Another unusual feature of the New York market is that many apartments are only available through a broker. The typical New York apartment search involves hiring a broker to spend a day or two showing available units; when the lease is signed the broker collects a substantial fee from the renter, typically 15% of the annual rent.

The broker is definitely the easiest way to go if you're on a tight schedule, but my take is that if you've got time to do the research, there's no need to go through a broker: there are a number of landlords who will rent apartments directly. The trick is finding them, but luckily we have the internet. Craigslist has a separate listing for no-fee apartments, and one can find recommendations of no-fee management companies around the web (here for example). There's also a book that I found extremely useful called The Nouveau Native's No Fee New York: it has not only general advice for apartment hunting in New York, but also a very comprehensive list of landlords offering no-fee rentals. Many of these landlords list availabilities on their websites, which made it very easy to put together a shortlist before I even got to New York.

From that point it was just like searching for an apartment anywhere else, only with much, much higher rents. Landlords in New York tend to require a lot of documentation to prove that you'll be able to pay: at least a letter of employment and usually also bank statements and pay stubs, and sometimes tax returns and W-2s. If you're coming from out of town, it's a good idea to take this stuff with you so you can apply on the spot.

I ended up renting from a management company called Archstone, and it was such a good experience that I want to mention them here. I was able to walk into two of their buildings without an appointment and get full tours from very helpful leasing agents; on top of that the website has a lot of information, and even lets you apply online. They have properties all over the country so it's worth checking out if you're in the market somewhere other than Manhattan.

Anyway, the housing search turned out to be surprisingly easy given all the tales of woe I'd heard about the Manhattan rental market. Now I'm working on the next challenge: getting all my stuff across the country and into the new apartment.

New York photos

While waiting for approval of my apartment application on Thursday, I took a walk around Manhattan (mostly downtown) and crossed the Brooklyn Bridge on foot. I've posted a few photos on Flickr, in my New York City photoset (which also has some recently-uploaded pictures from a trip I took in August 2006).

My route included the length of Wall Street; as the famous line says, it runs from a graveyard to a river:

I'm considering starting another photography project after I move, similar to Project 365 but with a lighter update schedule (probably one per week) and with New York City as the subject; that way I can document my exploration of the city. (It also gives me a replacement for the out-of-date Project 365 sidebar section; actually the whole sidebar of this page needs some work.)

New York City in fiction

I'm off to New York this week to look for housing; to put me in the right frame of mind, I'd like to hear suggestions of iconic portrayals of NYC (particularly Manhattan) in fiction. Accuracy of the portrayal is less important than style, but if it captures the spirit of the city in some sense that's a bonus. In any case the city shouldn't just be the setting (Wikipedia has a whole category devoted to this); New York should be somehow central to the story or thematically important. Some ideas (just off the top of my head):

• Film: King Kong, Escape from New York, Cloverfield
• Television: Seinfeld, Sex and the City
• Literature: Bonfire of the Vanities, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
• Video games: Deus Ex, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

Please suggest more, and I will check out the ones I haven't seen/read so as to be up to speed on the cultural connections to my new location.

Bonus round: iconic portrayals of Wall Street or the finance industry in particular, such as the Oliver Stone film Wall Street.