Josh & Josh: Two Years In New York
See that stuff? That’s what I brought with me to New York City when I moved here with Josh K. two years ago last night. One big suitcase, a backpack, a carry-on, and two boxes sent by mail. That's it.
Josh and I arrived in New York, fresh off a one-way plane ride, on August 30, 2005. We had graduated from college three months earlier, and moved to New York without jobs, without really knowing anyone, and with a tiny nest egg of money we managed to squirrel away over the summer.
The great adventure began.
We moved into a three-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side, at East 88th Street and Third Avenue, which was actually more of a one-bedroom apartment with two large walk-in closets. Indeed, our first bedrooms in New York City were identically sized seven-foot-nine by seven-foot-nine rooms. (For those of you doing the math, that's about 60 square feet, which is about ten square feet less than the average American prison cell. We were also each paying the equivalent price of a Minneapolis one-bedroom with bathroom, kitchen, fireplace, and view of downtown.)
Those first few months in Manhattan were an emotional rollercoaster. We loved Manhattan itself, and took a particular shine to Central Park. We hit up free Friday night museum events, racking up visits to the Guggenheim, Whitney, and MoMA.
But then, of course, there was the fun of job hunting (which is to say, of course, the incredible non-fun of job hunting). We would send out thirty resumes and maybe get one response, and then end up without an interview. We got temp jobs near Wall Street and kept looking for something better.
In the meantime, by our first Christmas, less than four months into our adventures in New York, our apartment had experienced the joyous ravages of a cockroach infestation, a rampant mouse problem (we’d watch movies and listen to mice scampering around in the kitchen) and then, the true coup de grace, a bed bug infestation that drove us to the brink of actual insanity. There’s nothing like waking up in the morning with blood on your sheets, welts on your arms, and the paranoia of knowing that as soon as you go to sleep you’ll be bitten again—and also knowing the little creatures are almost impossible to eradicate.
When spring came, and the whole bed bug mess was finally a distant, paranoid memory, things were slightly better, but not enough that we felt it was worth staying. New York is not for the faint of heart, or those who aspire to any sort of actual standard of living, and Josh and I decided we had had our fill. Josh K. moved home at the end of May, and I decided to stay on for the summer to finish up things at my job. I moved into an apartment in Washington Heights, at 180th Street and Fort Washington, as Josh K. settled in back home.
A mysterious thing happened that summer, though. I found a way out of a job that was going downhill, and found a much better one, with a promising salary and a benefits package nobody would turn down. I also met a great guy (enter Mr. Dylan), and started to feel at home in my (ten-by-twelve) apartment in the Heights.
Suddenly, I didn’t want to go home.
Josh K. wasn’t thrilled. We had made a pact to move home together, and I was breaking it. For a brief while things were tense. What would happen to us, we wondered, if one of us was in Minneapolis, and the other stayed in New York?
New Year’s 2007 passed, and then, in February, a solution emerged: Josh K. had landed a job in New York and moved back.
By March 2007, the Joshes were reunited.
A guy I once dated in New York (remember Colin?) once told me that the first year in Manhattan is always the hardest—vicious, even. The second year is sometimes harder than the first year in patches, but holds glimpses of promise for the future. Things slowly start to fall into place. Those who make it to the two-year mark, he said, are usually destined to stay. I often wonder if he was on to something.
Now another summer in New York is drawing to a close, and Josh and I are celebrating the two-year mark. It hasn’t always been easy, but damn if we aren’t still here. We now both have jobs that we’re in to, we’ve both fallen in love with great guys, and we’re living in Hell’s Kitchen. We’ve come a long way from the fresh-out-of-college boys living in closets on the Upper East Side, working temp jobs.
The topic of the pros and cons of life in New York and Minneapolis is still a frequent conversation during weekend brunches. I think it’s a conversation most people who’ve moved to this city still have regularly. Who knows if New York is for us, forever, but for now—for right now, for today—New York is home.
