IT wasn’t just that Sally Ardrey’s home of 21 years stood along the path of the new Second Avenue subway line. Her building was on the main corner of Second Avenue and 72nd Street, the location of a future subway station.
She and her neighbors have known for at least five years that their homes would be demolished. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, having seized the building by eminent domain, was legally required to provide help for the households and businesses being displaced.
Reluctant yet resigned, Ms. Ardrey joked that she would never leave Manhattan, even if that meant “pitching a tent in Central Park.” Visiting friends at the Powerhouse, which she called “the most beautiful apartment in Long Island City,” in Queens, she asked herself, “What is wrong with you?” Why couldn’t she make a move across the river? And she answered, “It is not Manhattan.”
Ms. Ardrey, who was born in Boston, grew up in Litchfield County, Conn. She married while a student at Vassar College, moved with her new husband to the Boston area and finished her education at Boston University.
The young couple moved first to Midtown East (“I think it was an illegal sublet, but we didn’t know better,” she said), then to a “divine garden apartment” on East 80th Street and then, after the arrival of their two children, to a three-bedroom in a prewar high-rise on East 96th Street.
That’s where Ms. Ardrey, now retired and a grandmother of four, lived when she did some modeling and acting. Her most prominent role was in Wisk’s iconic “Ring Around the Collar” commercial, the one with the recalcitrant suitcase whose folded shirt taunts her for failing to get the ring out. “The whole thing is so sexist,” Ms. Ardrey said. “The woman is packing his suitcase!”
She later worked at an art gallery and in the executive-recruiting field. After her divorce 25 years ago, she left the high-rise for a nearby studio, whose owner warned her she would need to move if his son flunked out of college. Flunk he did.
She found stability in a top-floor studio on Second Avenue and 72nd Street, in the building that houses Falk Surgical Supplies. She later upgraded to a one-bedroom on a lower floor. She loved gazing south at the traffic streaming down Second Avenue, which was “like a river view, constantly changing,” she said. Her stabilized rent ended up at $1,726.78 a month.
Despite years of community board meetings intended to keep residents informed about the subway project, the situation “has been anxious-making and frustrating,” Ms. Ardrey said. “How dare they tear the buildings down! In every other civilized city in the world, they could figure out how to go under them.”
(Because of building codes, it would be impossible to keep the station and its ancillary ventilation facilities underground, said Kevin B. Ortiz, a spokesman for the M.T.A.)
In September, Ms. Ardrey, who has folders stuffed with correspondence about her forced move, received a letter from O.R. Colan Associates, the relocation consultant used by the M.T.A., offering three “comparable replacement dwellings.” Rents ranged from around $2,000 to $2,500 a month.
“She indicated she was in a corner apartment and wanted what she deemed sufficient light,” Mr. Ortiz said. “We do everything we can to accommodate specific requests.”
A “complex formula” accounting for a tenant’s age, financial situation, apartment size, length of occupancy and rent-regulation status determines what is deemed comparable, he said. Currently, 15 out of 48 households remain to be relocated.
Ms. Ardrey, who sometimes calls herself “the displacee,” maintained that a comparable dwelling also needed the right feel.
One M.T.A.-chosen apartment, at 83rd Street near First Avenue, was “perfectly decent and had zero personality — no pizazz, no life, no charm, no feeling, no guts, no nothing,” Ms. Ardrey said. “You looked at rooftops, but when you sat down you saw only sky,” she said. “I could have been in any city. I could have been in Minneapolis.”
She wasn’t keen on high-rise living, either. “Living in a walk-up brownstone gives you a feeling of immediacy of the city,” she said.
Another place, on far East 77th Street, was in a white-brick low-rise. “I had my mind open,” Ms. Ardrey said. “If I had walked into a wonderful space, I could have dismissed the outside of the building.” But it was just as unattractive inside.
Ms. Ardrey, feeling that O. R. Colan, based in Charlotte, N.C., had little experience in a real estate market like New York’s, decided to hunt on her own. But the places she saw all looked alike, with an entry directly into a kitchen or living room. Most received little light.
O. R. Colan referred her to Doug Hochlerin, an agent at Bond New York, who showed her a one-bedroom in the East 90s.
This one radiated charm. “Something about it speaks to me,” Ms. Ardrey said. “It is like meeting a person. There is some sort of chemistry that goes on between you and the space.”
At around 600 square feet, it was similar in size to her old place but, possibly because of the large foyer and kitchen, “The whole apartment feels smaller.” Space is wasted on a kitchen, said Ms. Ardrey, who finds it a chore to cook.
The monthly rent was $1,600 on a two-year lease. “It was an extremely good value,” Mr. Hochlerin said. “That’s because it’s a ground-floor apartment facing the street,” but it was a nice street, cozy and tree-lined.
Ms. Ardrey hesitated only briefly. “That awful thing happens when you look,” she said. “You might find something. You think it will take six or eight months, and you see something that has charm, and you have to act fast.”
She moved in late last fall. The M.T.A. paid $6,800 for moving expenses, including the broker’s fee.
Ms. Ardrey said she thought it unfair that the M.T.A.’s calculations did not include tipping the movers. Nor would the M.T.A. pay for the appraisal of some antiques — which the movers wouldn’t touch until they were appraised. So Ms. Ardrey paid those expenses herself — $400 in tips and $1,400 for appraisals. The M.T.A. will revisit the issue and consider the appraisals as an essential moving expense, Mr. Ortiz said. “The tip is arbitrary,” he said.
Ms. Ardrey also thought it unfair that she was relocated against her will with no further compensation. “It’s such an upheaval,” she said.
Though her current rent is lower than her old rent, the apartment is not stabilized. The change, “at my age, is particularly unfair because you have no buffer going forward,” she said. Her financial status was calculated a year ago, back when her investments were worth more.
If her new rent had been higher than her old, she would have received a lump sum, called a “tenant rental assistance payment.” If her new rent (and utilities) had totaled $2,195 a month or more, she would have received the maximum — a lump sum of $65,553.01. She calculated that it would have lasted for more than 10 years of higher rent, though it’s impossible to predict future rent changes.
A friend suggested she rent an expensive place, take the lump sum and move after a short while. But that seemed pointless. “I want to have a settled life,” she said.
Meanwhile, Ms. Ardrey is warming up to her new home. Its charm includes crooked kitchen cabinets too high to reach. There are fewer closets than she is used to, so she installed shelves.
She still feels disoriented. In the living room, “the couch feels a little too big,” she said. But is it really the table by the couch that is too big? She isn’t sure.
Her main concern is fitting all her belongings in. She had been holding on to dishware from her grandmother and great aunt in case she ever had a dinner party, but now doubts she will. Plates have gone to a granddaughter. “So I am sort of meeting myself in the future in this apartment,” she said, separating what she must keep from what she can give away, and urging herself, “Let it go.”
