Marcel the Shell...be my friend?

No words. Just Puppies.

a roof over your head

I often say that to live in this city is to love this city, because no one in her right mind would pay rents like these to live in a smelly, dirty, loud, crowded town like this one for no good reason. That's how i know i really love New York-- because i can't bear to part with it. the apartment i live in is just a roof over my head; the city is my home. The NYTimes City Room blog published this awesome piece recently after asking readers for some of their worst nyc apartment stories. Some hilarious, some humbling and some outright horrifying, these make me grateful for my place, especially as the weather starts to turn (ahem, 60 degrees on December 1st whatthehellisgoingon). A couple of my favorites...

After I broke up with my live-in boyfriend, at 22, I wanted the camaraderie and company of roommates above all else. I thus chose to live with eight people in a “duplex” (read: first floor and dank, dark basement) on 6th and Avenue C after they wooed me with a backyard BBQ. My 8 x 8 subterranean room was $500 but also wet and cold, and one morning I woke up to find an ant line marching from the window (which was near the ceiling and looked out into the dirt of the garden) across my duvet over my chest, to a muffin on my nightstand. I did have company, though after all: A giant African bullfrog one of the roommates had freed in the garden would mush itself against the windowpane at night, and croak to me at all hours. Unfortunately, not the prince I was looking for.

— Sarah

2002, South Side of Williamsburg.
The apartment looked great, 3 bedrooms, eat-in-kitchen, one bath and a walk-in closet! Except:
– It was a former crack house. People would come by and reach through our windows asking for god knows what.
– Water pouring from light fixtures because of leaks in the building.
– No heat (my shampoo would freeze in the winter); I would turn the stove on and sit on top of it with the door open for heat.
– No super. One awful winter our window was stuck open for a month.
– Roaches
– Mice
— southsider