A Moving Story

My mother (z''l)* told me that when she was an immigrant girl in the early 20th century, living with her widowed mother and four older brothers and sisters, they used to move every year. They lived on or around West 10th Street in Greenwich Village, and it was a renter's market! Landlords offered one month's free rent on one-year leases to new tenants, and because they had so few possessions, it was cheaper to move around the corner or down the block than to stay put. One year they even tried Hoboken (there was a ferry), and the cat they'd lost on moving day followed them there on his own, several days later.

I often thought of that as the movers loaded up my enormous container of clothing, furniture, appliances and other household effects to make the move alone to Tel Aviv.

Now I think of it when I read tales of real estate prices in Manhattan.

*"May her memory be for a blessing"