Monday, March 14, 2016

One month

It's hard to believe, but I've had possession of this UWS apartment for an entire month as of today.  Especially since I still don't have it together - I still have to hang pictures, put stuff in storage, give stuff away, buy new stuff to replace some of the stuff I had to give away, etc. etc.

So far my observations of this area are:

  • Central Park is Awesome: my daughter and I went for a 5K run in the Park on Saturday - through the Pinetum, up and down Summit Rock and around the Reservoir. Lots of terrain variety. It was fairly crowded until we headed north of the Reservoir, and then we had the trails to ourselves.
  • Self-serve laundromats are almost non-existent. This is tolerable because there are plenty of wash-and-fold places - and I do love to get a nice, folded brick of clothing back from them. I've always been lackadaisical about folding my laundry, meaning I never fold it. I just stuff it right into a drawer. But few of the wash-and-folds are same-day service. I miss the convenience of just popping clothes into the washer/dryer and having clean clothes in a few hours. Albeit unfolded.
  • There are quite a few vacant retail spaces around. I don't know if that's an issue with the UWS or retail spaces in general since so much shopping happens online these days.
  • There is a much higher concentration of white people on the UWS than in Astoria
  • There is an Apple store on Broadway in the UWS that is even bigger than the one on Fifth Avenue.
  • The neighbors are friendly in my apartment building - I've had nice chats with three of my neighbors so far - two of them helped me schlep boxes up the stairs. At my old apartment building not even the superintendent helped me schlep anything. And I don't think I exchanged more than a few words with my neighbors in Astoria the entire six years I lived there.
  • I don't miss the view - I had a view of the Empire State Building from my Astoria apartment, but after the first couple of weeks I barely noticed it. Meanwhile I have big trees out my windows in this apartment and I am looking forward to watching them go through their seasonal cycles. 
  • People really love animals around here - there's a whole bunch of animal organizations with storefronts on Columbus Avenue, and one of them has peacocks - live peacocks - in the window. I must get a picture of that.