A quintessential New York story is a story about real estate. No character, plot, or conflict is ever as interesting against the backdrop of New York City; after all, performativity on the streets is the norm, and dramatic scenes are everywhere. The only part of a story that a New Yorker pays attention to is the setting, the where, the realtor’s shrill voice shouting location, location, location!
I struck gold in the winter of 2020. Tens of thousands of people had fled New York by then and returned to their childhood bedrooms in Cali-fornia, Utah, or Indiana. When my boyfriend and I were searching for an apartment in Manhattan in October 2020, the broker was so eager to show us all the empty units sitting in one building that he turned on all the taps to demonstrate the superb water pressure and even promised four months of free rent. It was then that I knew something miraculous would come along: a rent-controlled apartment.
You only hear stories about rent-
controlled apartments, but you never know what they look like, where they come from, or how to possess them. When the broker opened the door of one such apartment, a fifth-floor walkup, I was enchanted at first sight: the classic New York brick wall, sunlight pouring in from a door-sized skylight, subway tiles in the bathroom, one bedroom, and a dishwasher. We signed a two-year lease in a heartbeat. The promise of this apartment was not only its affordability, which eased the burden of my needing to take two or more part-time academic jobs to survive, but also a rare sense of security: I would no longer be clueless and helpless in New York.
The apartment is located in Murray Hill, what Joan Didion describes as the “monochromatic flatness of Second Avenue,” or what E. B. White calls “the residential unit.” Frankly, it can also be the “sickness unit.” Several major hospitals line up two blocks away, with more clinics and doctors’ offices scattered around than nail salons. The rhythm of the neighborhood is orchestrated by nurses rushing by in their scrubs, roaring ambulances, and injured, unhappy-looking people in wheelchairs or walking with canes. Sweetgreen, Chipotle, Chinese takeouts, and Thai lunch specials are part of the food scene. My downstairs bakery is called Baker’s Recovery—Healing Through Dessert.
It was not a neighborhood for us, I thought. But this apartment would be a sanctuary until we could move somewhere better, closer to the places we watched on TV. Like every young couple excited about their first taste of independence, we bought rugs and picture frames from thrift shops. We got married and adopted a dog. We held onto the infinite possibilities amid the racing ambulances and busy trucks honking at the entrance to the Queens-Midtown Tunnel.
As in most fairy tales, a bucket of gold often turns into dust, or even worse. You snap yourself out of the magic and realize that all along you’ve been carrying a bag of beans that, if thrown away, will be a waste, but if mushed into a soup will make you bloat and fart. Two weeks after we moved in, I woke up in the morning and stumbled my way into the kitchen, trying to locate my coffee pot. Why was it so dark? I looked up and then realized that our skylight was covered by snow, turning our entire apartment into a cave. Who was talking on the phone? Our neighbor worked in sales, and the thin, cheap plaster wall between us could not mute her 24/7 nonstop talking and giggling. Before long, we discovered that there was not one, but two opera singers on our floor and the floor below us. They did not sing beautiful arias. Every morning, they stretched their vocal cords long and wide, a full range of scales and sirens. They were dedicated artists; repetition was key.
Soon spring arrived, the rainy season began, and the leaking from the skylight became a constant battle. We pulled out the rug and followed the reporting from Channel 2 First Alert Weather rigorously. But worse yet was the summer heat. With no window in which to install a portable AC unit, our living room transformed into a high-temperature oven, powered by the abundant sunlight from the skylight that I had once treasured. To survive the heat, we hid in our bedroom till the summer passed, only to re-emerge in the fall.
It is easy to say goodbye to the city, but harder to a rent-controlled apartment. We wanted to stay for two years but have ended up staying for five. The young couple who used to be optimistic about the future couldn’t help but feel trapped. Over the years, I morphed into the kind of New Yorker who doesn’t venture out to a restaurant further than a five-block radius, and who’d rather watch a YouTuber livestream the Chinese New Year celebration in Chinatown than hop on the train and sniff the smoky fireworks myself. One summer I became increasingly skeptical, even resentful, when I saw newcomers on my block carrying a large second-hand mirror under their sweaty arms. They still fantasized that a mirror would make their apartment look larger and more beautiful than it was.
On a warm, depressing afternoon in June 2025, after hours of browsing YouTube content in bed, I discovered Lorde’s recently released music video “What Was That.” In the video, she bikes along the East River Park, wanders around Midtown East, and heads down to Washington Square Park for an impromptu performance. From 1:33 to 1:44 in the video, Lorde, in her white shirt and dark blue jeans, passes an empty parking lot, crosses the street, and there it is: my apartment building, right between Baker’s Recovery and Zaks Hair Salon. My insignificant street and apartment were chosen and recorded by a pop star. This raw, hectic everydayness must so move her. She was singing, “A place in the city, a chair and a bed… Now, we wake from a dream. Well, baby, what was that?”
Ge Gao is a writer based in New York City. She’s working on her first collection of esssays.