"If you can make it there..."

So. If we can pull this off we can make it anywhere? I guess I believe that. It has been a whirlwind week of negotiating the challenging apartment acquisition process here. The good news is that we got our apartment and we are 1/2 moved in. The bad news is that we got our apartment and we are 1/2 moved in!
This is the apartment we found on Craigslist while still in Florida--we thought we lost it to another family since we decided not to wire lots of cash to save it for us for 4 days later when we arrived in NY. It turns out that the other family couldn't get out of their lease so when we landed we got a message from the owner asking if we wanted to see it the next morning. We did and agreed we would take it. The owner is new at renting and the application process was crazy and much more involved than we had thought it would be because the building is a co-op owned building. We had to meet and be approved by the Board of Directors, fill out reams of paperwork including excessive (in our humble opinion) amounts of financial data, last minute letters of recommendation and all sorts of other seemingly irrelevant information. Sigh.
Managed to coordinate our moving company to have our household goods there today (Friday) since move-ins are not permitted on weekends. Even the process of moving in was nuts--we had to personally hire a doorman and the movers had to file insurance paperwork to work in the building.
We like to consider ourselves minimalists. But we are SO not feeling like minimalists at the moment. To see the quantity of stuff that fit into our 2250 sq.ft. house + 3 car tandem garage all shoved into an 800 sq.ft. apartment is scary, to say the least. We did get rid of many things before we left Portland. There were lots of items we didn't have time to purge or just didn't think about--mostly garage type items--gardening things, the dog house, outside toys, extra random tables and stuff, oh and the Thule box for the car that we sold (can you say space hog?).
The other disheartening thing is how in NY people don't leave apartments clean before renting them. Several brokers told us that is just typical for here--We are lucky that ours didn't have a bunch of junk in it. Especially frustrating when we think of renting our house in December--the place was immaculate and we worked our tails off to get it that way, then we left a bottle of wine, a typed list of our favorite restaurants in the area and other welcome to the neighborhood goodies. Here we got a yellow sticky note on the wall that said "Enjoy" and we have to clean the place ourselves, and this was all after spending a week in limbo where we felt scrutinized and judged and like puppets in a process and a worthiness scale we don't quite understand or subscribe to.
The movers broke several things in the move--a tree stand coat hanger, a set of shelves, the kids Lego table, Maya's wooden doll house, Brett's bike fender...and those are just the easy ones to describe. They also failed to bring the hardware for putting the beds together, all the kitchen stuff, towels and linens and a bunch of boxes of the kids toys. I am assuming we will be reimbursed for the things that aren't usable, and I am sure the rest will show up soon. In the meantime, we are working at getting rid of a bunch more things so that we can actually walk through the place. For now we are still sleeping and eating (and using the Internet) at the temporary apartment.
The apartment is on Central Park West and 109th. The north end of the Upper West Side (read: almost Harlem but not quite). Morningside Park is 2 blocks away and Central Park is across the street. The subway is right outside the building. Grocery and several shops 1 block away. The building is pretty and old, great lobby, elevator, bike room and laundry in the basement, doorman from 2PM on. Neighbors are friendly and diverse, and while there seem to be a lot of rules and red tape, it seems to be working in that they have a nice rapport with each other. There is actually a Spring Lobby Party on Sunday night. 70% of the residents own their apartments and the rest are renting. Our apartment is a 1 bedroom, 800 sq.ft., nice entry way, rennovated kitchen with dishwasher and decent cubbard/counter space, washing machine, hardwood floors. The light is good and the space is well laid out. We actually like it better than many 2 and 3 bedroom apartments we had seen previously. Will show pictures when it doesn't look like such a train wreck.
Thanks to everyone who sent mail this week! The kids were ecstatic and we can now get library cards, yay!