Category: New York City

finance, New York City, personal finance

DailyWorth.com: Lack of Renter’s Insurance Could Burn You

Christa Avampato

I was recently published for the second time on DailyWorth, a financial advice website. I wrote about financial lessons I learned as a result of my apartment building fire. Laura and I will run a link to the article on The Journal of Cultural Conversation as well to get the word out. This information is critical to protecting your financial well-being, particularly if you live in New York City. To read the article, click here.

The photo to the left was taken by me and is an actual picture from my building after the fire.

change, happiness, New York City, story

My Year of Hopefulness – Stories We Tell Ourselves and Others

Christa Avampato

Today was not a good day in the ordinary sense. I had a conversation that disturbed me on a very deep level, one that really made me question who I am and what I’m about and what I mean to do in this world. Luckily a friend of mine set me in the right direction – he helped me see that this conversation is a very good thing for me. It’s helping me to realize the next step in my life in a very clear way.

After work I went with my friend, Col, to the West Village’s The Bitter End to see The Moth, a group that does a themed open-mike night of storytelling. After my day, I needed to laugh and lose myself in someone else’s stories and The Moth provided just the release I needed. 10 brave souls took to the stage, after their names were drawn from a hat, and discussed their stories that revolved around the theme of disguises. They told us about experiences where they had to pretend to be someone they’re not to accomplish something – to earn a paycheck, to meet someone whom they wanted to meet, to realize who they truly are. They were all poignant and hilarious, and Sara Barron, the MC, is a brilliant comic.

Traveling home, I kept thinking about the stories from The Moth that revolved around people who put on a mask, sometimes literally, and then put down that mask to be who they really are. For some, it took an unhappy situation, like the one I experienced today, to make them truly embrace who they are. They had to be forced to pretend to be someone else before they could actually find their own true voices. And in their own true voices, they were able to tell their own stories, their own truths. It was exactly the lesson I needed to transform a tough personal day into a day of learning.

economy, finance, home, housing, New York City, real estate

My Year of Hopefulness – A Room (or Two) of My Own, Eventually

Christa Avampato

Tonight I went to a session offered by Mindy Diane Feldman, a Penn alum and SVP at Halstead Realty, on the ins and outs of buying an apartment in Manhattan. It is a complicated, cumbersome process and the current economic downtown has heightened the complexity considerably. The session lasted almost 3 hours and we just barely scratched the surface. It is not an undertaking for the faint of heart! While many of the other alums left feeling a little dejected and depressed how complicated the process is, I felt lifted up. I felt like I was armed with a little information that would help me to move in the right direction of finding a room (or two, or three) of my own on this tiny little island that I love so much.

Some of my friends are surprised by my desire to stay in New York after this September. I can understand the confusion. I had the opportunity to just pick up and go somewhere new after losing my last apartment and most of my belongings. Realizing how much I don’t need in the way of material belongings, why would I ever want to be tied down and own my own tiny place?

I don’t have a clean answer. All I can say is that the thought of leaving New York never crossed my mind. In fact, I feel it’s even more important now for me to know my neighbors and my building and my neighborhood by owning an apartment. I am so tired of starting over. I’ve done it every year since I was 18 years old. I’ve had enough moving and transience in my life. A temporary dwelling is no longer appealing to me. And while I’d love to work abroad on an assignment and travel extensively, I finally found the city where I feel most at home. After so much looking and so much loss, the comfort of calling someplace a real home brings me a tremendous sense of peace.

I won’t even attempt to cover the 3 hour session in this blog post. I can’t even list all of the highlights in a reasonable amount of space. Here are the top 5 pieces I found most useful in my decision to begin working toward buying my own place:

1.) There are huge differences between co-ops, condos, and “condops”. Each has its positives and negatives and determining which one is the right one for us takes extensive research and soul-searching.

2.) Unlike with rentals where I find most brokers to be a little tough to handle, when we buy a place, particularly in New York City, our real estate broker is our very best ally, resource, and champion. Interview them. Ask A LOT of questions, and go exclusively with 1 broker (and tell them that you’re doing so.) If they know that you’ve committed to them, they will be committed to you. They are the lynch pin to helping you go from being a renter to an owner.

3.) There is actually a triumvirate of allies that are critical to buying an apartment in Manhattan: the real estate broker, an established, private residence real estate attorney, and a financial broker. The real estate broker is the pilot of the entire transaction and the other two are the co-pilots.

4.) The savings process and the purchase process are long affairs. Mindy opened the session by asking who was interested in buying an apartment in the next 3 years. That was the shortest time horizon she asked about. With today’s climate and for the foreseeable future it takes much more money than it ever has before to buy an apartment. It is a serious investment of time and money. At first I thought it was foolish for me to go to this session because I am several years away from being able to purchase an apartment. Mindy helped me realize that planning now, years out, is the best thing I could possibly do!

5.) I’m one of those people who is always out in the world looking for opportunity. With the economic downturn and the real estate crash, I’ve been wondering if I should buy now, even if I’m not really ready. Deals abound so shouldn’t I take advantage of them? Mindy’s answer was an emphatic “no”. A home is not our retirement or our 401K. It is an investment on a very different level. There is a psychological, emotional, and financial investment wrapped up in one and it needs to be treated with greater care than any other investment we make. To buy when we aren’t ready, financially or emotionally, is a huge mistake. Gaming the economic situation is not a good idea. Buy when you’re personally ready.

Given the value of this session, I highly recommend getting in touch with Mindy should you be interested in learning about the apartment buying process in Manhattan and determining if it’s the right thing for you. She can be reached at 212.317.7887 or mfeldman@halstead.com.

art, history, home, New York City, retail, shopping

My Year of Hopefulness – Demolition Depot

Christa Avampato

On Saturday I took the bus up to East 125th Street to a place that’s fascinated me for some time. About 6 months ago, I was coming back from LaGuardia Airport on the M60 bus and went by a store with a strange looking sign that read “Demolition Depot”. At first I thought it may be a construction (or rather destruction) company. I imagined backhoes and front-loaders and items like that inside. But the shape of the building didn’t seem to fit that kind of business. I went home and Googled it to find that it is a place that houses dismantled building treasures from 5 continents. It is the dream house of many a film art director, or a writer like me. This is where old New York (and every other major city for that matter) finds a home for what remains. Inside its wall are thousands of stories waiting to be told.

I went up there today on a little writing adventure. I’ve been working on a fiction piece and thought that a trip to Demolition Depot may help jog some kind of inspiration. It did not disappoint. It reminded me of an old, 4-story barn. The smell of the place brought a smile to my face – musty and oddly comforting. I picked up a clipboard with an inventory form just in case I found some artifact that I wanted to take back with me.
My favorite spot of all was the garden, an area out back that houses giant gates and doors and wrought-iron screens – exterior pieces that on the street we would have to admire from afar. Here I could get up close and examine their details, every twist, turn, and adornment. Gargoyles and ornamentation and stained glass windows that took my breathe away. Who lived among these items? Where did they go? What did they do? What did they learn?
I felt as if I was walking through someone’s house, as if I was trespassing and wasn’t supposed to be there. I just loved it so much that I couldn’t turn away. I just spent hours weaving through the four floors and the garden. Taking pictures, making notes, even sitting at some of the table settings, two of which I immediately loved and wanted for my home.
The trip accomplished exactly what I had hoped. I walked away with images and ideas that will be cropping up in my writing for many months to come. I understand that material items are of little value when compared to the value of personal relationships in our lives. What I appreciate about the one of a kind items housed at Demolition Depot is that they have borne witness to extraordinary and ordinary events of the lives of thousands of people. People passed through those doors, looked out from those windows, told time by those great giant clocks that now lay in wait for some lucky new owner. A majestic treasure trove of history just waiting to be remembered and re-told.
history, home, New York City, writing

My Year of Hopefulness – The History of Where We Live

Christa Avampato

I crunched along on the few fallen leaves on Columbia’s campus walk yesterday and smiled wide. A perfect fall day took me back to being a student in Philadelphia, the tall, impressive buildings lined with names like Sophocles, Vergil, and Plato reminded me of the joy of academia.

Late in the afternoon I was on my way to see Inna Guzenfeld, an archivist at the Avery Architectural and Fine Art Library at Columbia. The papers and drawings of Emery Roth, the architect who designed and lived in my apartment building, are housed there. During the 1920’s Roth was the busiest architect in New York City, and many regard him as one of the founding fathers of the art deco movement. Until I moved into my building two weeks ago, I’d never heard of him and now I think of him and thank him every day.
“No bags, pens, no flash on your camera, touch the plans only on the edges, and we close at 5:00 sharp,” said Inna. She had everything laid out for me in perfect order, and all of the materials exactly as I had asked for him. She is the hallmark of efficiency.
There was an architect there doing research. Maybe in his 40’s, Elvis Costello glasses, lean, and intense. He looked up at me with some interest.
“Are you an architect?”
“No,” I fumbled. “I’m a writer.”
“Why are you interested in that building?”
“I moved into it two weeks ago.”
“Who’s the architect?”
“Emery Roth.”
“You live in an Emery Roth building?”
“Yes.”
“What floor?”
“Top floor.”
“Really?” he said as he quickly removed his glasses. “You know those buildings are stunning. I’ve had the chance to work in a few of them. Are they doing work on your building?” he asked.
“No, it’s actually perfect,” I said.
“I’m not surprised,” he continued. “That man was a genius.”
And then I knew I was on to something.
I have been having architecture dreams, dreams where I feel my way along passages in my building, curling around dark corners to find some secret way through to the light. I’ve found myself waking up in the middle of the night with complete clarity and scribbling down notes as fast as I can before the images fade from my mind. So it was with great excitement that I learned that the actual building plans, made on linen, were preserved just 15 blocks north of my building by Inna and the team at Avery.
The Archives were freezing, a preventative measure to preserve their contents as well as possible. I peeled back the plans one at a time, pouring over dimensions and lines and descriptions of the very walls I wake up in every morning now. Their pungent, historical smell reminded me of the Fischer Fine Arts Library at Penn where I spent many hours studying and reading as a student. To this day, Fischer is still one of my favorite places on Earth. The floor on my side of the building remains exactly as it was then, in 1924. These were the maids’ quarters.
Inna also provided me with the autobiography of Roth, which I quickly devoured, and a book about his work entitled Mansions in the Clouds. Closing time was fast approaching so I was running through the text as fast as I could, continually fascinated that Emery Roth and I share some striking similarities, from the tone of our writing to our family lives as children. His writing style is so relaxed that I felt like he was reading to me, telling me the story of his life. I wondered why an architect committed such personal thoughts and feelings to paper while I also wondered if it was possible to fall in love with someone through his writing, someone I’ve never met who passed on decades before I was even an inkling in my mother’s eye. And then I was reminded of Thomas Jefferson and my affection for him as I read everything he ever committed to paper. Yes, love through writing is possible.
In the final 5 minutes of my time at Avery I found the gems I was looking for. A “Tower Room” was designed for my building, though I have yet to find it. What could someone house in a Tower Room? My mind is reeling with possibilities. Roth lived on the very floor where my current apartment is, on the other side. I found the plans and photographs of it. I believe it’s still in existence, exactly as he had designed it for himself. There are numerous references in his autobiography and in his drawings about his desire to build fire-proof buildings – it was of critical importance to him to protect his work from going up in flames. Chills ran down my spine.
What’s more, the building where I live provided the pinnacle of happiness for his wife. He designed the penthouse specifically for her. It was the living space she dreamed of, and then a sad set of circumstances set in for her in that very space, and she was never quite the same. The writer in me has been working overtime since leaving Avery. The fact that there were so many photos and that Roth wrote personally about the space in my building where he lived left me with a feeling that there is a story here that can and should be spun out and told.
As I packed up, Inna asked “did you find everything you needed?” “Absolutely,” I said, “thank you.” The architect next to me looked up and smiled. I suppose my giddiness at my findings showed, and he understood them well. The places we live house special meaning. They aren’t just a collection of walls and doors, but they contain intense, personal moments that define our lives. This new space is a new chapter for me, in my life and in my writing.
The image above is not my own. It depicts the lobby of Devonshire House, a building in Greenwich Village of New York City, that was design by Emery Roth in 1928.
adventure, apple, New York City, technology, writing

My Year of Hopefulness – Programming and the Mind

Christa Avampato

I seem to be receiving a “critical update” from Apple everyday on software that’s installed on my computer. I’m not really sure what any of the fixes are or why I need them, but I trust Apple. If they say I need them, then I assume that I do. So I click the little button that says “install now” or something to that effect. I go about my business while Apple magically repairs all of my software problems in the background. I’m an efficiency junkie so I’m a big fan of parallel-pathing.

Writing works a lot like those critical updates from Apple. Friends, family, and co-workers always ask me, “when do you find the time to do all of this writing?” Truthfully, I’m always writing. Sorry – this is my confession. My writing mind is always working in the background while I go about the rest of my life. When I’m having dinner with friends, at movies, at CVS buying shampoo, at work, I’m writing, tucking away little bits and pieces to use later. I’m one of those hopelessly nerdy people who always has a pen and piece of paper in my bag. Even when I’m heading to a big night out. You just never know when something interesting will happen. And I can’t be held responsible for keeping it all stuffed in my brain. I need that pen and paper.

I also purposely try to put myself in interesting situations. I seek out new people, go to lectures, book readings, and art exhibitions all the time. It’s one reason I am so in love with New York, and fall more in love with it everyday – there’s always something new to see, do, and try. New York and I have had a long and sordid history together. 11 years running. At times, we’ve been blissfully happy to be with one another and at other times, we’ve each gone running for the hills. But we always somehow end up back together, New York and I. This is my third time moving here, and I imagine you’ll find me here for a very long time to come. There’s just too much going on here for me to be away for that long. My writing lives and breathes here.

I’ve been wondering how Apple knows what to fix and how to fix it in these updates. My only idea is that it goes out into the world and takes stock of the latest software landscape to make needed improvements. I do the same thing in my writing. In the past year, I’ve been sending myself out on little writing adventures in New York. Odd-ball museums, sitting in a crowded area and eaves-dropping, going to parts of town I never frequent without a map and getting as lost as possible. On Saturday, I’ll be heading to the Demolition Depot on 125th Street. It contains 4 floors and a garden full of architecture pieces from every conceivable period. When buildings are dismantled all over New York City, most of the pieces end up at the Demolition Depot.

Can you imagine what crazy things that place stores? While I’m sure there’s a fair amount of mundane items like antique faucets, I’m equally sure that there are valuable items that will inspire my writing. A fireplace that I’ll imagine someone sitting before, a gargoyle who faithfully watched over a busy street for many years, a mirror where a young girl watched herself become a woman. You see – inspiration is everywhere; you just need to keep looking, especially in unlikely places.

My fingers are getting itchy. Just writing about writing is giving me some ideas. This writing mind of mine is working in the background and it’s almost time for me to reboot to see all of the changes that have occurred in the past few minutes. In the time it’s taken me to write this post, some more dots have connected, and I have to make sure to get this all down before it’s hopelessly lost in the abyss. I’d like to think I’m a recovering multi-tasker, though as with most addictions, I guess I’ll always be in a constant state of recovery, never quite cured of my desire to do multiple things at once. Thank goodness for background processing!

health, home, New York City

My Year of Hopefulness – Fire

Christa Avampato

Today I was more scared that I’ve ever been. I’m blogging tonight from the a comforting home of a friend, smelling soot and ash from my laptop that is likely ruined. My apartment building caught fire today.

I’m fine. Most of my belongings are fine. At around 1:00pm I heard the floor of my kitchen crackling and the floor began to heave. I grabbed my keys and went downstairs to tell my neighbor to stop doing whatever he was doing. And then the stairwell filled with thick black smoke.

I couldn’t see anything – it was as if I had a blindfold on. I got as low as I could, scrambled down three flights, and yelled as loud as I could. Apparently my yelling helped some of my neighbors get out of the building. No smoke alarms went off, or at leas none of the ones I pass on my way downstairs.

It was a curious thing. I felt like I was flying down those stairs, as if someone was carrying me. My apartment is largely untouched, despite that most of my neighbors around me have apartments that are virtually destroyed. And just this morning I was talking about the importance of renters’ insurance and how I’d never had anything like a house fire happen to me. It’s all a bit eerie. I’m worried I may never feel at home in that apartment again and yet, I’m also very much aware that someone, somewhere was and is protecting me.

My greatest fear was that I’d pass out on the stairs, dying from smoke inhalation. And even though I got a face full of soot, I never once felt like I was suffocating. I only had the fear of suffocating. Very different. Truthfully, I came out that front door with a scratch, bump, or bruise on me. I was just fine. Only shaken.

And now I wonder if this one event is enough. As if I weren’t already painfully aware of time passing by, now I think I might be turning a corner, again, in my quest for a whole, joyful life. It seems that now I really don’t have any reason to be afraid. That there is no time like the present to grab ahold of everything I ever wanted to do or be. A few more minutes in that building, and the ending of my story could have been much different. I might not be writing this blog post tonight.

We’re all always on borrowed time. Now, it seems impossible to me that I could ever forget that. And for this borrowed time, I am most grateful. I learned today that I really don’t need any possessions I have. All I needed was my health. I just needed to be okay. The rest can be replaced. All of it. Amazing how it takes something so traumatic to truly know something so basic.

Already I feel the gloom lifting and the light settling in. Already I know that I will be more than okay, that today I begin never, ever looking back. Today I start moving forward with a new energy to build the greatest life I possibly can. And again, I feel like I am flying, as if someone is carrying me. And I know they are.

art, New York City, The Journal of Cultural Conversation

The Journal of Cultural Conversation: An interview with Hani, NYC’s Famous Sidewalk Artist

Christa Avampato

A few weeks ago, I was on my way up to Harlem to do some research for an after-school program I’m hoping to launch in January. As I was walking up Broadway, I stopped to admire a painting that had been done of the sidewalk.

It depicted a smiling Barack Obama beside a very pensive Hillary Clinton. Scrawled next to the painting was a URL: http://www.hanisidewalkart.com/. I wrote down the site to look into at a later date.

Two weeks ago I moved into a new apartment, and the day after I moved in there was a large gathering of people in a circle across the street.

I thought for sure someone was hurt, signing autographs, proselytizing, or break-dancing – all common things in New York that draw large sidewalk crowds. None of the above.

There was Hani, painting Michael Jackson on the sidewalk.

This time, I went home immediately and looked up his website. I would have interviewed him right there on the spot, though didn’t want to disturb his creative flow. I emailed him and he wrote back that same evening to say he’d love to be featured on TJCC. His story and work are fascinating and I am enthralled with his art, much of which is showcased on the website. I’m very happy to share his remarkable talent with you. Please click here for the interview.

art, hope, New York City, science, South Africa, travel

My Year of Hopefulness – Hope Grows

Christa Avampato

Today I went to the New Museum of Contemporary Art with my friend, Allan. There’s a South African photography exhibit by David Goldblatt on display there that I wanted to see. On the third floor, the photographs are dire. “Is all of South Africa a desert, Christa?” Allan asked me. In the photos the land has been reduced to rubble, laid barren by years of struggle and negligence. “Where is the hope?” Allan asked.

We then made our way up to the fourth floor where there were a series of before and after photographs. Barren land had regrown some. South Africa seemed a little more green, not teeming with life, though certainly much improved. I felt a small flicker of hope.

I went to South Africa about 2 years ago and though I had a series of unfortunate incidents, I also had a set of really incredible circumstances that endeared me to that country and its people. I’m sure I’ll return some day soon. While there seems to be no hope in the structures of shanty towns that can be found throughout the country, there is a great deal of strength and ambition in the eyes of South Africans. They seem to always be looking up and over, at something brighter and better in the distance.

The handful of before and after photographs got me to thinking about how hope and life can regenerate without any outside influence. The first law of thermodynamics involves the conservation of energy and it states that energy cannot be created nor destroyed. In Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, he reveals to us that while the first law of thermodynamics holds true, energy can transform into mass, and vice versa. As I viewed the photos of South Africa, particularly the before and after photos, I thought about Einstein’s theory and how it applies to broader circumstances outside of science.

It seems to me that the re-growth of life, mass, could be due to the fact that energy, hope, cannot be created nor destroyed. It just is, then, now, and always. While it may change forms and go into hiding from time to time, we can be sure that it is always there, available to us if only we have the insight to recognize it.

memory, New York City, success

My Year of Hopefulness – A Random Sign to Set the World Right

Christa Avampato
“There is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community, and communication … Try the experiment of communicating, with fullness and accuracy, some experience to another, especially if it be somewhat complicated, and you will find your own attitude toward your experience changing.” ~ John Dewey

This morning when I stepped outside, there was a decided feeling of Fall. I felt like I might have just stepped through some kind of portal and been taken back in time. All of a sudden, it didn’t feel like New York anymore. It felt more like Society Hill in Philadelphia, where I went to college. The squat, ornate brownstones. The crisp air. The feeling that some great historic figure would emerge into the street at any moment.

I didn’t sleep much in college. One, because my insomnia was at its peak for the entire 4 year stretch. Two, because I was woefully behind all of my other classmates, meaning I had to work twice as hard, at least, just to keep my head above water. Three, because I had to work multiple jobs all the way through. I spent a lot of early mornings watching the sun come up. During my senior year, I worked at Olde City Coffee all the way downtown. I loved the trip down there in the early morning, before anyone was awake. I felt like I had Philly to myself for a little while. This morning took me back to those early mornings at Olde City and everything I looked forward to when I was 21.

I remember a few thoughts vividly from that time. I was interested in making a strong, lasting impact on the world. I was determined to be financially stable. I spent a lot of my time thinking about what I wanted to be my contribution to humanity. Going to school in Philadelphia, a place that is steeped in history, intellect, and righteous rebellion, renders people practically unable to consider anything except the big picture. Now, I treasure those days. At the time, I was really scared that I’d never live up to the impossibly high standards that my school impressed upon us daily. The constant reminder of greatness that the founding fathers left scattered around Philly didn’t help either. At some point, you begin to worry that anything short of founding your own nation is just not a high enough achievement.

As I made my way to the subway, I saw the sign depicted in the image above. In some type of chalk / paint / marker, someone had written “If we all do one random act of kindness daily we just might set the world in the right direction. ~Martin Kornfeld”. Maybe it was thinking about my college days that had me waxing nostalgic; this sign really struck me. I had to stop and take a photograph. It communicated a profound message to me so simply and beautifully, and I’m sure it’s done the same for countless other. If only I had seen this sign sooner, about 12 years sooner, I might have been able to calm down a little bit about my life and its direction.

I thought about this sign all day and how much good it does for all who see it. Imagine if all of us, everyday, did just one nice thing for someone else. Someone we know. Someone we don’t know. Someone who may never know us. How different would our communities and the larger world look? And imagine how different our own attitude toward our experiences would be. Maybe it’s all we can hope for – giving a little kindness, getting a little kindness, and doing our small part to make our communities a tiny bit better than how we found them the day before. It seems to me that that is a contribution to humanity that we could all be proud of.