Day 252 - 10031-3321

We signed the lease this afternoon. We now have an official NYC address with an official NY zip code. We are thrilled with the apartment. Aside from being an a great older building with architectural details like high ceilings and embossed crown moulding, it's in a great location.

Sugar Hill is the section of North Harlem that runs from W135th up to W155th street. It is so named because it was the 'sweet and expensive' place to live from the 20's to the '40's. Several of the buildings are landmarked both for architectural detail and because of the writers, musicians, and politicians they once housed. Alexander Hamilton's country home is just around the corner, and is now a branch of the NYC library. Miss Sylvia's Soul Food, considered one of the top restaurants in Harlem, is only one subway stop or a 20 minute walk away, and Fort Washington Park is about two blocks West of our building. For a while in the 80's and 90's, Sugar Hill was pretty dangerous because of drugs, gangs, and gambling, but recently has been cleaned up into a quiet, safe, residential area. Fortunately for us, the rents still reflect the darker days to some degree, which is the only reason we can afford to live on the island proper. Oh, and our building is rent-stabilized, meaning that the rent can only increase by small increments, not at the booming rate of the rest of the city.

After signing our 2 year lease, we spent the rest of the day puttering around the city and not doing much of anything.

We met up with our friend W in the evening to watch a free pre-screening of Morgan Spurlock's Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden. Spurlock is the same guy who brought us Supersize Me. In this latest film, he travels to the Middle East, ostensibly looking for Osama before the birth of his first child. He spends most of the film talking to the locals in each place he visits, and over and over they express the same sentiments of people we met on our travels. "We HATE the American government, but we love the American people."

I hope we can change that government.