Our NYC Apartment!

Wow - So we did it! We found an apartment in NYC.  It was such a whirlwind of a day.  We basically had 1 full day to see roughly 15 apartments.  It was jammed packed, with appointment after appointment.  We did find 10 minutes to scarf down a delicious piece of NYC pizza.  Ahhh - so much better than deep dish Chicago style.  I digress. Okay, so back to our search - here's how our day went!

Our day started at 9:30am when we met our realtor at our hotel. We took the subway to LIC (Long Island City; an up and coming part of Queens) to see roughly 9 apartments.  Out of those 9 there were only 2 that we saw ourselves living in. One of those 2 apartments we had a few questions on.  It was the biggest we saw at 1200 square feet but technically it was only 1 bedroom.  They put up a temporary wall to create a second bedroom, but ultimately that wall would have to come down according to NYC law and we wouldn't be able to put up another wall.  So that got checked off the list.  The other apartment that we liked in LIC was 1000 square feet and had a washer and dryer in the unit.  To save space we wouldn't have a dinning room table and we'd have to eat at the kitchen island.  It would have worked but ultimately we went with one we found in the Upper East Side.

By 1:30pm we were looking at our first apartment in the Upper East Side.  It was on the corner of 80th St. and 3rd Avenue....they were asking $4,600 for 980 square feet....ummmm NO THANK YOU!  We then saw 3 or 4 more that were okay but didn't feel right.  Then the final 2 apartments of the day that we saw were in building that are managed by the same company. 

The apartment that we settled on and can already picture ourselves living there is in a building called The Hamilton.  It's on the corner of 90th Street and York Avenue.  The building has a washer and dryer, gym (they just redid 2 months ago), locker rooms with saunas, a solarium, roof top deck, kids play room and outdoor confined kids playground.  I'm so excited I could just squeal.  Oh, and we have a fancy doorman, dressed to the 9's. 

Some more pluses I'll just list off:
1) Asphalt Green right across the street - the biggest swimming pool compound in NYC.
2) Asphalt Green - huge standard sized soccer field and basketball courts and a playground that has water sprays in the summer time, right across the street
3) both 1 and 2 can be seen from all windows of our corner apartment!
4) amazing views of the East River.
5) I just mentioned that we have a corner apartment.  We only share one wall with our neighbor and that's in the master bedroom so we don't have to worry about being quiet.
6) The building has a free shuttle that takes you to the subway.
7) We have 2 buses M-86 and M-31 that START right in front of our building.  Important because you can always find a seat.
8) Is in a very quiet, feels like a neighborhood part of the Upper East Side.
9) Carl Schwarz Park (a huge park) starts at 89th and East End Avenue.
10) Perhaps the largest apartment we saw in Upper East Side.
11) Gracie Mansion right around the corner.
12) Our building will store 4 pieces of luggage for us (luggage within a piece of luggage) so we don't need to take up space in our closets. For free!!! :)


I remembered to take pictures of our empty apartment that they are currently fixing up and will have ready for us on March 1st. Enjoy!

Our Kitchen - Galley Style.

Our Living room with lots of light.

The soccer field I mentioned.  Taken looking out of windows from our apartment.  It is open to the public!

The parks and water park, looking out our living room.  The building on the right is Asphalt Green - where the swimming pools are.  Mikey can take swimming lessons there.

This was taken with me standing in the corner of the living room. The windows are to my back and you can see into the kitchen (pass thru) and the entry way.  The door ajar in the entry way is a W.I.C.

The master bedroom.

The kids bedroom.  They have the second walk in closet.

The hallway/kids bathroom.  The master bathroom is exaclty the same.  I like the storage under the sink vs. a pedestal sink.

You see our entry way in the forefront and living room is where our realtor is standing.  The entry way can fit a table.

Our building at 1735 York Avenue.

I realize I should have put this picture first. It's our floor plan.

Cross Streets right outside our building.

We both realized how tall our building was once we took this picture. 
You can see our apartment from here.  See where the shorter buildings roof is? Go up one more story and the 3 sections of windows on the right is us. Still don't know what I'm talking about?  Count up 5 stories starting where the windows begin (our lobby is 2 stories) and we have the right corner apartment.

A closer up view of our apartment.