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| Moving Day 1831 |
This post about New York City’s Moving Day was supposed to appear on May Day, but my brain experienced a technical error, and I posted fashions instead. We're going to pretend my OCD brain doesn’t care if I don’t post on the exact date, and direct you instead to this interesting saga.
Apparently starting in New York’s colonial era, 1 May was designated Moving Day. This was because all the rental agreements expired on the same day, and landlords inevitably raised the rent, and so…
…everybody moved. This practice, which foreigners found very strange, indeed, continued until after WWII.
Rather than rephrase a story told and illustrated beautifully elsewhere, I’ll simply direct you to two excellent accounts:
Moving Day, an online exhibit, and the fascinating entry at Wikipedia: Moving Day, New York City.
