ALL summer, Victor Tineo set deadlines for himself, and all summer he broke them. He would absolutely be out of his mother's place by - well, soon, soon.
He couldn't commit to an apartment because he was waiting for his best friend, John Wang. The two had vowed to room together, but Mr. Wang was deciding between the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, in Greenwich Village, and Brooklyn Law School, in Brooklyn Heights. His decision would determine where they lived.
The two 23-year-olds graduated in 2005 from Vassar College. Mr. Tineo moved home to his mother's one-bedroom duplex on West 148th Street, where he occupied the living-room couch. "I am way too old to live with my mom," Mr. Tineo said. "It is unnatural."
Mr. Wang returned to his parents' house in New Rochelle, N.Y. "Victor's mom wanted him out of the house, whereas my parents are, 'Stay home as long as possible; stay home until you die.' " Mr. Wang said. "Victor was trying to move out, and I was trying to save money."
Mr. Tineo, dead set against living in Brooklyn, hoped his friend would choose Cardozo. "It is a total status thing and I know I am being a jerk about it," he said. So, in the spring, he began hunting in downtown Manhattan for a two-bedroom rental for less than $2,000 a month.
Every place he saw was unacceptably small. "I wouldn't be spending much time there, but I would feel bad for my roommate, who would be stuck studying," said Mr. Tineo, who works as a project coordinator for an office equipment company. "I would never want to make his law school experience more difficult than it has to be."
And when he did locate a big, bright two-bedroom in Clinton through rent-direct.com, his roommate, still saving money, wasn't ready to move.
In the meantime, to get out of his mother's place, Mr. Tineo took a summer sublet on West 45th Street costing $1,140 a month. "I was the first person, not who contacted the guy, but who was able to see the apartment," he said.
He liked being in "the nexus of the universe" near Times Square, but the place was a wreck, with a bathroom in the hallway and a nonworking oven.
Mr. Tineo was brokenhearted over the loss of a two-bedroom walk-up on Thompson Street in Greenwich Village, which two friends from New York University were vacating. The rent was $2,200. To him, it was perfect.
But to Mr. Wang - who had chosen Brooklyn Law and had declined to apply for student housing because of his pledge to room with his friend - it was too far from school. He was, however, willing to take the Thompson Street apartment if they could delay their move by a month, therefore saving on rent. They couldn't.
Mr. Wang, guilt-ridden, assumed the hunt. Mr. Tineo, exhausted, let him - and resolved never to say, "I told you so."
"I thought John was ignorant to the whole market," Mr. Tineo said, "but he promised me that he would find something comparable, and he is definitely a man of his word."
There was, however, nothing comparable. "John found out why I wanted Thompson Street so badly," Mr. Tineo said. "He was not excited about anything he saw. I could see the frustration."
So Mr. Tineo braced himself for Brooklyn. One day, the two friends jumped in the Wang family car for a Brooklyn trip, accompanied by Mr. Wang's sister, Jacquelyn, 14, and his girlfriend, Christina Dias, 23.
"We kind of went to Brooklyn with a few apartments to look at and no plan," said Ms. Dias, another Vassar classmate, who is living in Putnam County with her mother before enrolling in graduate school next year.
They rejected a nice place on Quincy Street for $1,750 because the area felt industrial, and a $1,400 three-bedroom atop a deli on a busy main street.
They ended up at another nice place, a two-bedroom on Classon Avenue at the border of Clinton Hill and Bedford-Stuyvesant, for $1,675.
"Both of us, being the indecisive men we are, said, 'Oh, the apartment is so far away; maybe we can do better than this,' " Mr. Wang said.
Ms. Dias was fed up. They were "hemming and hawing," she said. "I was, like, we can't leave Brooklyn today without an apartment, because this is just ridiculous!"
She made them call the Quincy Street landlord. "If it's gone, they know they have to figure something out now, and if it's not gone, I am overreacting," she said.
It was gone. Alarmed, they needed little prodding to apply for the Classon Avenue apartment and insist on leaving a deposit right then.
LAST month, the two signed a one-year lease, with Mr. Wang's parents acting as guarantors. Within days, Mr. Wang proposed to Ms Dias, which is why he was so intent on saving money.
"With the decision to get married in mind, I had to allocate my finances," he said. "My regret is that I should have been more forward and frank" about the moving date. "A lot of this is my inability to say whatís going on." The wedding date is Aug. 4, 2007, after which the housing situation for everyone will be reassessed.
The two friends filled their new place with leftover college furniture and bought a flat-screen television. The living situation, settled at least temporarily, is "quite great," Mr. Wang said. "We have a lot of fun."
Now, though, he is feeling responsible for dragging his friend so far into Brooklyn. (Mr. Tineo's subway trip to work can take nearly 50 minutes.) So Mr. Wang suggested he arrange with his parents to buy a car, which the roommates would share. "I have tried to make the living situation as comfortable as possible, which is why I am hoping to get this car - to really help Victor out," Mr. Wang said. That, finally, is what made Mr. Tineo say, "I told you so." To him, it was an admission of a mistake that had been preventable all along.
"If they really researched, they wouldn't have to spend their money on a car, and it could have gone toward living in a nicer neighborhood or getting an apartment in the city," he said.
To date, no decision about the car has been made. |
