For some 200 years , the busiest daylight in New York City was neither Thanksgiving nor New Year ’s Eve . It was May 1 , when , at 9:00 a.m. , everybody ’s apartment lease expired . All at once , hundreds of thousands of people had to snaffle their things and move to a novel home .
Every yr , bedlam ensue . gymnastic horse and passenger car clogged the route , beds and bureaus rendered walk unpassable , and mass ’s belongings shed into the streets . “ Rich article of furniture and ragged piece of furniture , handcart , wagons , and drays , rope , canvas tent , and stubble , boxer , door guard , and draymen , white , xanthous , and black , occupy the streets from east to west , from north to south , on this sidereal day , ” wrote Frances Trollope in 1832 . Two years later , Davy Crockett witnessed the debacle firsthand , order , “ It seemed to me that the metropolis was take flight before some dreaded cataclysm . ”
To make matters more exciting , hoi polloi were n’t just moving out of house — some property owner took the opportunity to tear old house down . “ brickbat , raftman , and slates are showering down in every focal point , ” wrote former New York City mayor Philip Hone in 1839 . Everybody could look to see their furniture get trashed , too . An 1855New York Timeseditorial caution proposer that their ownership would “ arise very old ’ twixt morning and night , ” advising them to grease one’s palms some nails , glue , putty , and a dry pint of varnish to buff out the inevitable incision .
Why May 1 ? It was city fable that May Day was when Henry Hudson and his Dutch crew on theHalve Maenhad fructify out for Manhattan . That was n’t in reality true , but early New Yorkers celebrated anyway by going on annual journeying of their own — and finding raw homes for themselves . As decennary passed , the tradition became law .
But by the twentieth 100 , Moving Day started to fizzle . Rent law relaxed , and more tenants decided to renew their leases each year . Still , the custom did n’t become flat until Gi returned home from World War II . The metropolis ’s universe soared , and the lodging stock , already suffering , cratered . By 1945 , nobody wanted to move . So they did n’t . A similar custom , however , still lives on — in Quebec .
