apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I'd recommend having at least three people with you - one to sit with the double-parked truck (because chances are, you won't find an open spot right in front), and two to bring your stuff inside.

Double park. Everyone does it.

best bet is to not block traffic...other than that, make it snappy and you'll be fine! if you can, have a friend watch the truck so you can park at a hydrant, or said friend can "hold" a newly opened up spot (or three) while someone moves the truck closer. or do it at really odd hours when you won't be in the way no matter where you park it (yeah, definitely don't do it during rush hours...)

man, this is when i love living in my neighborhood. it's orthodox jewish, so anytime we've got to move a lotta stuff, unpack the car, get a big delivery, we ask for it on saturday...because our street is pure silence all day long.

Check out alternative side of the street parking on your block. Where I live, you can't park on my side of the street on Mondays which makes Mondays a great day to move in -- you can park right in front of the building. My old place was Tues and Thurs for 2 hours blocks only I'd plan to pull up then, if possible. And keep someone with the truck.

Optimally, you want to have someone in the truck ready to move it, someone unloading the truck, handing stuff to two or more people who are doing kind of a relay race up the stairs (or hopefully elevator) and someone (you, maybe?) IN the apartment directing which room (if you have the luxury of more than one room) to put the stuff in.

It's a good idea to have stuff labeled VERY well on EVERY SIDE OF EVERY BOX!

The way I do it, is to go ahead and spend the money to go to Staples and get some letter-size-x-legal-size file storage boxes which tend to come in packages of of 4 or 6, and cost an average of little bit more than $1 each. They stack BEAUTIFULLY, especially important if you're moving in a small space with high ceilings, as your new New York apartment is likely to be.

I also like to splurge on some full-sheet-sized labels for laser printers -- you know, the kind that is one whole letter-sized sheet -- and print out the labels in like 72-point or 64-point type, and go ahead and stick those to ALL sides of each box. You can probably get one whole box worth out of a sheet, actually, and just cut them with scissors.

SO much nicer and neater to be stacked in the truck as well as stacking in the old home AND the new home. Do yourself a favor and do as I say; it makes everything less of a nightmare.

Another thing you had better figure out -- exactly which days does your building say you can move? Saturday is a popular day to move, but many building forbid moving in or out any day but a week-day, and at that, never on a holiday, and at that only between the hours of 9am and 5pm, because they have union staff that needs to staff the service elevators, and stuff.

Sometimes a building's super will be kind of lenient, but generally only if you give him a fairly healthy tip, which is kind of not a bad way to start in a new building, because getting on your super's good side is VERY important to being able to get along in your new home.

Please forgive how interminably long that last little post was.

Oh! And by the way, welcome to Manhattan, Mary! It's a great place to live, as long as you figure out the ins and outs of it, and this is really a pretty good crowd to help you figure out much of that.

1) Steal some orange traffic cones. The big ones, if you can. You might be blocking traffic or taking up 3 on-street parking spots (like we did) but the cones actually made things look "official" and gave us unbelievable and surprising authority to totally hog space and screw-up traffic. I started "collecting" the cones a few weeks before my move.

2) You need three people, at least. One to sit at truck and feed meters, watch for spaces to open up, watch for ticket wenches. And two to make the trips back and forth.

Don't park it anywhere full without someone in the truck. I was at the police station in Brooklyn filing a report and I'll never forget the lady who came in to report her full moving truck had been stolen. Oy vey, she knew better but didn't have a choice.

Thanks, everyone! These are very helpful tips. We're moving to 107th between Amsterdam and Broadway; I've been working in NYC about half the year for the last several years, so my husband and I decided to go ahead and make the move this year.

We lucked out and found a two-year houseswap on Craig's List so we're getting way more apartment than we could afford otherwise.

Glad that this has been cleared up.

You might call your local police station and ask if it's possible to get "no parking" signs put up, or to put up yourself. I don't know if they do this in New York, but in DC you can do it--you tell them you're moving, you go pick up the signs, and you can put them up in front of your new (or old) place 3 days in advance. I even did it once when I lived on a street with parking meters, although it was a pretty large PIA. Of course, that's no guarantee somebody won't park there anyway, but it's a deterrent.

1) Double park.
2) Have extra person whose job is to sit in the truck cab just in case.
3) Unload EVERYTHING into the vestibule/downstairs hallway of your building as quickly as possible.
4) Once fully unloaded your extra person parks the truck legally...
5) ...while the rest of you take your time geting the stuff into your new apartment.
6) PS: Sunday Morning is the absolute best time to do this

I wouldn't count on double parking. My husband and I moved last fall and the moving company very specifically said that they would not park illegally and if the client insisted on it then the client would be responsible for all fines.

That said, on some streets it is legal to park a commercial vehicle during the day when it's not legal to park a car. The NYC website might have more information.

also, I second what Margaret said. (If you think you can swing the double parking.) Get everything into the building, get rid of the truck and then get the stuff into the apt.

Double park or park in front of a hydrant if there's one near the door you're loading into. I'm shocked by Eliza's moving company -- I can only guess they are not NYC-based? I've moved twice with Flat Rate and both crews took double/illegal parking for granted (nor did they get a ticket either time).

There are obscure rules about what constitutes "legal" parking anyway (obscure in my opinion at least). This past fall my husband and I rented a cargo van for a trip to IKEA. After unloading we parked it overnight at a meter on our street. The next morning we came downstairs to a $60 ticket for parking a commercial vehicle in that spot. Not sure how we were supposed to know this was a rule -- there are NO signs posted prohibiting commercial vehicles and heaven knows the rental place didn't warn us.

(And we're not newbies -- I've lived here 8 years, and my husband has been here 17. Though I guess it's not too surprising that we wouldn't know about parking rules, given that we are prototypical New Yorkers who rejoice in not owning a car and therefore not having to think about parking rules.)

Wow, Mary, you'll be just 11 blox from me! Welcome to the neighborhood!

curlygirl, i got a ticket for parking a uhaul on a residential street...so yeah, that's the digs! and some streets are arbitrarily considered residential (even though mack trucks take to driving down my avenue!) as opposed to commercial, with no warning, signs, or real reason.

i never paid the ticket, and uhaul never did bother me about it...so whatev ;)

I lived three blocks from you (on 110th and B'way and then on Manhattan/Columbus and 107th) when I went to school! I agree about the same sized boxes. It seems silly, but it's really really helpful for packing. Also the three people minimum. When I lived in Montreal lots and lots of people had their stuff stolen on the big moving day because they'd leave the truck unattended. Off-topic, but there's a great cafe on the corner of 103rd and Broadway, and a fabulous restaurant called A on 106th and Columbus. It's a wonderful neighborhood, have fun!

Mary, you're 2 blocks away from my mom. I miss that neighborhood; lived there most of my life...I joke to my friends (actually, it's not a joke at all) that if I were to win the jackpot, I'd move back to 10025.

Welcome to town!

oh...if no one has told you yet, the best movie rental spot is "The Movie Place" on 105th bet bwy & Amsterdam. They have everything AND they pick up/deliver.


As to restaurants, just try 'em all

It would probably also be smart to budget for some kind of ticketable offense or another, because the cops are sure to find one. Also, some blocks do not allow moving trucks to load and unload - or any vehicle to double park - on one side of the street. On my one way street, that means unpacking on the left side while double parked even though my apartment is on the right. This adds a little extra time because the movers then have to contend with traffic.

Have I mentioned that you all rock? I'm feeling very welcomed already.