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If you think the crowds at Manhattan's Rockefeller
Center get crazy during the holidays, imagine the
majority of the city's population packing the streets
with beds and other personal belongings on a single day
of the year. That's how it was for the better part of
two centuries for New Yorkers, thanks to a
colonial-era tradition
that may have stemmed from the English celebration of
May Day, or at least traditions brought over by European
settlers. Of course, the mood among residents was
typically more frenzied than celebratory by the time
leases expired May 1; an 1855
New York Times article
described the scene as "Everybody in a hurry, smashing
mirrors in his haste … and many a good piece of
furniture badly bruised in consequence." (The chaos
stemmed in part from the fact that landlords had to
notify tenants of rent increases on February 1, which
were set to take effect three months later; everyone who
didn’t agree with the new prices had to be out by 9 a.m.
May 1.) It was a harrowing experience for all but the
cartmen who
jacked up their fees
for the day, prompting the city to finally regulate
rates for movers in 1890.
By the early 20th century,
May 1 had given way to October 1
as New York's moving day, with the tumultuous
proceedings settling into more of "an exact science."
However, the annual moving day custom in NYC soon went
the way of the horse and buggy, due to a few factors.
World War II drew most of the
able-bodied movers into service, and a postwar housing shortage, along with the
subsequent establishment of rent-control laws and other
housing regulations, reduced the number of the city's
moves in general. These days, while moving in New York
is certainly still stressful, at least most of the city
isn't doing it at once.
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