How to furnish an apartment for nothing in NYC

[Tomconroy]

A great read from today's NY Times:

A few weeks ago, Denise Gordon was walking near her Gramercy home when she spotted an antique chest of drawers on the curb. She didn’t need it, but this dresser was too good to ignore — solid wood, with clawed feet and dovetail joinery. It was also too heavy for Ms. Gordon, who is 68, to carry. So she did what any good sidewalk stooper would do: She offered two random men on the street $20 apiece to carry it back to her apartment. And, being New Yorkers, they did.

“People don’t know what they’re throwing away,” said Ms. Gordon, who grew up on the Upper East Side and has been digging for discarded treasure since she paid 35 cents for a silk blouse at a thrift store when she was 13 years old. “In my neighborhood, they don’t know and they don’t care.”

New York City curbs are awash in furniture left behind by people who are moving, who died, or who are simply fickle. If you know where to look, and how to get the stuff home, it’s possible to furnish an entire apartment with someone else’s junk. And if you don’t know where to look, an entire ecosystem of expert scavengers has emerged on TikTok and Instagram, ready to help you scout out great finds.


A good sidewalk sleuth can spot a quality piece, knowing to check its heft and to look for features like tongue and groove joinery, before committing. They deftly enlist strangers and Uber drivers to help drag loot home, and often travel with screwdrivers, bungee cords and flashlights, in case they happen upon a gem.

https://nyti.ms/3Kqyo21

[mopinko]

2. chicago is the same.

i have a thing about chairs at my farm. i pick them up in the alley, put them out, and when they fall apart i throw them out.
but i have a house full of scavenged stuff, large and small. including a couple small boxes of good jewelry.

[hunter]

3. That's how my wife and I furnished our apartment when she was in grad school.

Everything we owned fit in a little U-Haul trailer. The only furniture we brought with us was our bed.

All the rest of the furniture in our apartment was found.

When my wife and I were in school graduates generally left all their stuff in their apartments, on the sidewalks, or in the dumpsters. We got our kitchen table out of a dumpster.

At the college one of our children went to they had a large furniture exchange. When students graduated they could leave all their furniture, etc., at the exchange and new students could look for stuff they needed. There was some nice stuff too, including computers, stereos, microwave ovens, etc..

I once worked for a student housing slumlord and the condition some graduates and dropouts left their apartments in was grim. A lot of that stuff -- sofas, beds, and the like -- went in the dumpsters. We also hauled out mini-fridges full of rotten food, including meat. Oh, the smell!

[Alice Kramden]

4. Visiting my niece in Madison, WI

during a move-out period after graduation, piles of good household items all over near UW campus. She said every year they call it "Hippie Christmas"

[stopdiggin]

6. Madison has a sense of humor

(and their volleyball team was a monster this year!) --- ---

Kind of tragic that the rest of the state decided to go South Dakota.
But - at least they haven't tried to assassinate any public officials yet! (that I know off)

[LakeArenal]

7. I was a landlord during student turnovers for 25 years in Madison.

If you think there is good stuff left on streets, check apartments left by wealthy foreign students going home.

Never had to buy a vacuum. They leave designer winter coats if the come from a warm country. We have found guns, state of the art music set ups, pets, so many name brand shoes. Sheets, blankets less than a year old. Just about anything you can leave they do.

[Blues Heron]

5. I was more into this before the bedbug outbreak...

now I’m much more picky. Winter is probably better for this kind of thing as far as that goes though!

[Ocelot II]

8. I've scavenged several items from the curb,

including a side table that just needed some paint, and some nicely-framed pictures. The art wasn't very good but the frames are definitely reusable. One person's trash is another's treasure, the saying goes.