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Printed from https://www.damninteresting.com/may-have-settled/
It was early in the morning on the 1st of May 1832 in New York City. The ordinarily gentle horse-drawn traffic of the up-and-coming metropolis seemed a bit more dense than usual, and as the morning progressed the avenues and boulevards became increasingly crowded. At 9:00am, almost as if on cue, thousands of doors on thousands of buildings burst open to vomit humans, furniture, and other sundries out into the bright morning sun. Within moments the streets of New York were a jangling amorphous pandemonium.
English author Frances Trollope happened to be in New York City to witness this peculiar spectacle:
On the 1st of May the city of New York has the appearance of sending off a population flying from the plague, or of a town which had surrendered on condition of carrying away all their goods and chattels. Rich furniture and ragged furniture, carts, wagons, and drays, ropes, canvas, and straw, packers, porters, and draymen, white, yellow, and black, occupy the streets from east to west, from north to south, on this day.
All over New York, tenants along with their belongings abandoned their abodes to criss-cross the city in mass migration to fresh dwellings. This was Moving Day. Owing to a quirk in New York law, nearly all rental contracts expired every year on May 1st at 9:00 AM, resulting in the simultaneous relocation of a multitude of persons and property. For over a century, from colonial times until shortly after the Second World War, it was the custom for the city to spend every May 1st as a scarcely navigable morass of humans, carts, and livestock.
We here at Damn Interesting headquarters (i.e., my residence) have recently performed our own interpretation of Moving Day, having spent an exhausting morning, noon, and night shuttling furniture, appliances, and corrugated cardboard cubes from one structure to another. The preceding packing and subsequent reorganizing have unavoidably disrupted our normally abnormal posting schedule. Next week, however, our jangling amorphous pandemonium will be over, and we shall be back to posting new articles.
© 2014 All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute or repurpose this work without written permission from the copyright holder(s).
Printed from https://www.damninteresting.com/may-have-settled/
Since you enjoyed our work enough to print it out, and read it clear to the end, would you consider donating a few dollars at https://www.damninteresting.com/donate ?
This is still a tradition in Quebec, although it takes place on July 1 (which is also Canada Day, the national holiday) instead of May 1. More details can be found in the Wikipedia article: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_Day_(Quebec)
As anonymous said, it’s still very much a Quebec tradition but by no means legally obliged. I do believe the origins had to do with preventing landlords from evicting tenants into a Wintery doom. Now though? It’s mostly just inertia and an excuse for moving companies to crank up there prices by a few hundred percent.
Fun.
As Patrick Desjardins said, that anonymous said… jk. Alan, we love what you do. I will be donating as soon as I have a few bucks. Thanks again for all your hard work, and I hope this move if for the better.
If only there were a adjective that could describe how interesting I find your articles.
LOL, “2 minutes or so” was about right. Clever little post.
It’s getting to the point where the majority of your posts are about how you’ll soon be posting more often.
While waiting for new content, Doyle, you may wish to read about the availability heuristic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_New_York_City#Historical_Population_data
Obviously every city has to start somewhere, but it blows my mind to think of the Big Apple ever having been as small as the tiny little rural town I currently live in.
Just wanted to say how much I enjoy reading here. I am new and loving the work you have done. Thank you to all the authors, editors, and contributors that have made this possible.
Apparently Doyle is somewhat new to DI and should go back to the old posts while the book was being published and read the comments there. Happy 4th to the DI loyalists!
Happy moving day alan … :p
You have clearly survived the move. Well done.
It’s so nice to be back reading your delicious brain food type thingies.
Please deliver more!
‘Damn’ is a pretty good one