Moving To New York (Part One)

In July of 2002, I was employed with Crunch Fitness, a health club chain based in New York City. At the time I was the Area Sales Director for the company’s 6 clubs in Atlanta. We had a pretty successful year to that point and there had been a shift in upper management in New York, creating a void for the same position in Manhattan. I thought for sure that they would either promote someone that lived in the city or hire someone more familiar with those particular clubs, so when I got the call offering me the position, not only was I floored, but I accepted it on the spot. Shani and I knew there was always the possibility I could get it, but no one had ever really mentioned anything concrete, certainly nothing along the lines of my having been the front-runner for the job.

I’ll never forget Shani’s response when I called to tell her.

“Hey babe. They offered me the Area Director position in New York.”

“What?” she said.

“Uh, yeah, we’re moving to New York.”

“REALLY?!?!?!?” she screamed. “That’s awesome!!!!! We’re moving to New York?!?!? We’re moving to New York!!!!!!”

And we were off….

When we moved, I negotiated a certain amount of money with the company for moving expenses, so instead of hiring a moving company I saved us thousands of dollars by renting a truck to move everything ourselves. I had moved myself a half a dozen times before, so what’s the difference here, I thought. The difference was that it was New York.

Not a good idea I soon found out…

I rented a 26-foot U-Haul, the biggest truck they had available, and put a hitch on the back to pull our Isuzu Rodeo. With no place to park it down south and not wanting to pay as much for a parking space in NYC that we were paying for our apartment in Atlanta, a friend agreed to park it in his backyard outside of the city to help us out. With the U-Haul and Rodeo together, we easily had about 40 feet of vehicle out on the road. It was a precarious drive from Atlanta up through the northeast, but we finally reached Manhattan around 3 p.m. on Labor Day, 2002. Shani and I took in the view of the skyline as we approached the city, and the excitement kicked in, neither of us realizing that our adventure was just beginning.

Traffic was backed up as we approached the entrance to the Holland Tunnel. After what seemed like forever, but was probably only about a 20 minutes, we pulled up to the toll booth.

“You can’t take this through there,” the woman said through the window.

“What do you mean, I can’t take this through there,” I replied.

“You can’t take THIS through there,” she said, pointing at the U-Haul. “No trucks. You’re going to have to go to the Lincoln Tunnel.”

I looked at Shani and sighed.

“Ok, so how do I get out of here?” I asked, looking across the numerous lanes of traffic next to us.

“Hang on.”

Within seconds, we were motioned around an alternate exit and headed back toward New Jersey. I was already running low on gas, and considering our luck so far, I wasn’t about to push it further. I found a gas station and pulled in. It seemed to be somewhat of a seedy area, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to get to our apartment in lower Manhattan as quickly as possible, so I fueled up the truck, and after a quick visit to the restroom, climbed in and was ready to go. Shani looked like she had a million thoughts swirling in her head.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“The bathroom was disgusting, Mike,” she said and started to cry. “Why are we moving here?!”

“This is New Jersey, babe,” I said, knowing I couldn’t tell her that I was thinking the same thing. “Don’t worry about it.”

We got back on the road and made it through the Lincoln Tunnel unscathed. I felt like Jed Clampett from the Beverly Hillbillies, literally bouncing up and down in my seat, full of excitement. This was prior to the days of GPS, but we had the map of where we needed to go, and I knew the first thing we had to do was to get to the West Side Highway. Once we were there, I felt like I was home free.

“We’re here, babe!!!” I shouted.

Both of us were grinning ear to ear. Yeah, we were there, but we weren’t THERE, at least not yet.

Now, for whatever reason, probably being a man and feeling like my internal compass would just guide me there, I decided to take a short cut and turned east. Very quickly I found myself heading south on Broadway….in a giant U-Haul.

“Uh oh.”

“Ok, just find me a one way street going that way,” I said, pointing off to the right.

“OH! There it is!” I hung a right down Morris St, probably less than 100 yards from the Wall Street Bull.

As soon as I made the turn, I knew I was in trouble. The street was extremely narrow with a row of cars parked on the left hand side, making it difficult to navigate even in a compact car. I was determined though. I’m a guy, of course I could make it. I inched ahead, closely monitoring the few inches of space between the truck and the first couple of cars to my left. As I got just far enough into where the trailer was now about to pass the first car, which was a small Honda, I stopped the truck and threw it in park.

“F--k! F--k! F--k! F--k!” I screamed. “We’re not gonna make it!”

“What?” Shani asked.

“Look ahead. There’s no way we make it all the way down, not with the Rodeo back there. One, if not all of these cars, are toast if I try to make it.”

There just wasn’t enough room. I could barely slide by the first car, and not all of them were parked far enough to the side for me to get by. It was either stop and try something else or take out a row of parked cars. It was all too wide. The truck, the trailer, the whole damn thing was stuck.

“Alright, screw it.” I said. “We’re backing this thing up. If they (traffic on Broadway) don’t stop, they’re getting hit. I don’t care anymore.”

I shifted the truck into reverse and prepared to back out into the middle of traffic on Broadway. But before I could get that far, I heard a loud CRUNCH! I had crushed the passenger side mirror on the Honda.
I put the truck in park and turned to Shani.

“Crap! I gotta call the cops.”

We both sat there, both of us just staring straight ahead, our minds swirling, wondering how in the hell we found ourselves in a giant moving truck, stuck on a New York City side street.
“What else could possibly go wrong?” I thought.

“Ok, where’s the apartment?” Shani asked.

“Why?”

“I’m gonna go find the apartment,” Shani said. “You call the cops, I’m going to go find it.”

“I think it’s right over there,” I pointed ahead and to my right in a Northwest direction, “A couple of blocks that way.”

Shani took the map with the address on it and hopped out of the truck while I dialed 911. A squad car pulled up within a minute or two.
“So what do you got here?” the policeman asked.

Standing there scratching my head, already exhausted from the two-day drive and its related stress, I explained what had happened.

“Oh man, it’s a mirror, you’re fine!” He said quite confidently, almost brushing off the incident entirely. “Get in the truck. We’re backing this thing out.”

Considering what New York’s finest had seen that previous year with the attacks of 9/11, I think they actually got a kick out of seeing my predicament. I got in the truck and followed his gestures, looking back at him through my mirrors.

A little to the right and, “Whoa!” he yelled. “Cut it this way,” he said motioning in the opposite direction.

As I started to move back, the other officer stopped traffic coming down Broadway to clear enough space for me to completely remove the truck from the street as well as my head from my ass, if I do say so myself.

“Park it right there,” he yelled, motioning to the empty space in front of the building at the Southwest corner of Morris and Broadway.

I pulled the truck up and parked it. By that time, a small group of about 4 or 5 people had emerged from the store on the corner. It just so happened to be a Crunch Fitness of all things! I hopped out of the truck and motioned at them.

“Hey everybody, I’m your new boss!” I said smiling.

Both officers met me on the sidewalk as well as a couple of my new employees from the club. I formally introduced myself and then went on to explain my situation to the cops.

To be continued…