Location: NYC
Size/Type: Studio, around 500 square feet (very approximate, based on memory)
Length of Residence: One year
My first apartment was at 7th Avenue and 28th Street in NYC. I was an art student and moved out of the dorms into a studio that I shared with a friend. I loved everything about it, even the fact that you could hear the trains arriving at the station below day and night — it made me feel like a real New Yorker...finally.
What I loved about this home: My favorite details were the old fashioned glass mail chute by the elevators and the wacky closed circuit tv channel that showed you the lobby of the building (so you see who you were buzzing up ahead of time). My nieces came to visit and the highlight of their trip was saying funny things over the intercom to people going in and out of the building and watching their surprised reaction on the tv - good (silly!) times.
What changed when I moved on to my next home: I moved to the East Village where I lived with my boyfriend (who later became my husband) and his roommate in a big old one bedroom apartment over a dry cleaner (smelly!). The switch from west side to east side and from above 14th street to below seemed like a really big deal at the time...and it probably still would.
Best bit of advice for people moving into their first home: Have fun and don't sweat the small stuff. First apartments usually have plenty of things about them that aren't perfect and you probably won't live here forever, but you WILL remember it so make some good memories!
Image: Kheel Tower 1926 Sales Brochure via 315 Seventh Avenue
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Interesting story! What year was this? Is that the actual building? Really neat looking place. Must have been somewhat expensive! I always love reading posts about New York apartments because they are so much different that what I'm used to here in the Midwest. Size, price, etc. The entire way of living is different.
I have always loved that building
I've always wanted to live in a neo-gothic building. I found one with a gargoyle (!!!) outside the living room window. But due to the indecisiveness of a potential roommate at the time, it was gone within 4 hours. Still bitter about it.
Now I'm living in a gut renovated Victorian building. Close to the architectural detail I dream about...but it's still no gargoyle..
What a great building Janel, and you probably remember its Neo-Goth baby sister on State Street here in Chicago, squeezed onto what probably started out as a lot for a single-family home back in the days when State Street was still residential. I don't have a photo of it myself, but the building was just featured last week on a blog post by the hugely talented Designslinger, whose new studio work I can't wait to see.
http://designslinger.com/2011/07/28/singer-building-chicago.aspx
My first apt was in Astoria, Queens. 2 rooms with red velvet flocked wallpaper, with a bathroom in between and the tiny efficiency kitchen along one wall of the rooms. I shared with my college roommate until we could find a "real" apt in the city on 15th & 3rd.
My first apartment, at age 18, was a studio on Geary in the Tenderloin in SF, complete with roaches and colony of mice. The only view from my first story room was into a narrow "courtyard" which must have gotten sun 1/2 hour a day, blocked as it was by the other 4 stories of the building. My furnishings consisted solely of a hand-me-down tweedy couch, a floor lamp I bought new at JC Penney (How new and exciting it was to buy even one item of "real" furniture!), rounded out by a director's chair and small drafting table I found at a thrift store. Nothing else. And I wanted for nothing.
I am glad I was not too concerned about what my space looked like at that time--there was so much going on! Working full-time, going to school full-time, having a full-time boyfriend, political associations, protesting, parties after the protests, clandestine Marxist-Leninist meetings, drunken Saturdays at the beach, hanging out with friends. Nor do I remember what we wore, or what we ate or drank. Isn't that funny?
But I learned so much: which streets were safe enough to walk down alone to get the the Muni; not to linger too long on neighborhood streetcorners at night while waiting for the traffic light to change; where to find laundromats with the friendliest cross-dressers eager to quiz me on the best methods for cleaning lacy undergarments; proper protocol for joining (any) protest being staged at City Hall; dodging exhibitionists in the main library.
There is something about having your first place be in a big city that is magical, and amazing--what an introduction to the world!