Not the lower east side and not the upper east side, it must have been the central east side where we ended up. Just a block east was Sutton Place, pretty prestigious. We could hardly believe our luck when we finally found an apartment that we could almost afford (we paid almost $200 over budget).  We had hoped to find something a year earlier when we came to NY but nothing showed up.  This time, however, it was more urgent as we wanted to be here for Moshe and Cris's wedding and didn't think we could impose on them — after all they were soon-to-be newly weds! But thanks to friends of friends of friends (literally), we found our pied-a-terre. It did not disappoint although at first it was a shock finding ourselves on the fourth floor (third floor British style) without an elevator. By the end of the first week we were used to climbing stairs, but always felt bad for first time guests.

The flat itself was a funny combination of good and bad. On the good side were: location, location, location; spacious rooms nicely but simply furnished; lots of windows bringing in lots of light; two TVs.  On the bad side: the only table in the place was a drawing table (the real tenants were graphic artists); there was nothing that even vaguely resembled a dining chair so we ate most meals on our laps and on the few occasions when we had guests we served buffet style. Tthe heating system must have pre-dated the civil war — it hissed and banged and clanked so loudly that we ended up turning it on only when we were out!

But worst of all was having to act like a thief in the place where we lived.  You see, this apartment that was too good to be true, was too good to be true.  That is to say that it was illegal.  The real landlord would have been only too happy to know that we were subletting as that would give him a reason for evicting the real tenant (who of course shall remain nameless to protect the guilty).  So we played hide-and-seek with the "super" and made efforts not to get to know anybody and were not allowed to get mail at the apartment.

On top of that, or really because of that, the fixed line phones — there were two — in the apartment were permanently on call forwarding. This was partly to make the landlord think the lessors had not taken off and mostly so that they could get their busines calls. There was a funny effect of this. Sometimes once a day, sometimes adozen times a day the phone would "chuckle" — make just half a ring, not a real ring. We thought that at least we figured it out: the noise was to remind residents that call-forwarding was on. Imagine that there was no such warning: you could pass days wondering why you didn't get any calls. Does anyone know if this is true?

What's the bottom line about our immoral subleasing? How do we handle the guilt? On balance of course, we loved it! And didn't really feel guilty, although we know we should and certainly wonder if we would go back, although we have been offered the place again.