Moving Day: When all New Yorkers moved on May 1

From colonial times up until World War II, May 1 was Moving Day, the one day a year when people in New York City moved. It’s said the tradition came from the Dutch, who set out for Manhattan on May 1 and therefore celebrated each year by swapping homes on this day. Later, landlords had to notify tenants of rent increases on February 1, which would take effect three months later at 9 a.m. Tenants waited until May 1 to move, and the streets would be filled with “moving vans,” Long Island farmers’ wagons led by horses, clogging up the city streets and creating complete pandemonium.

Now it’s a hassle to move on the 1st of a given month rather than somewhere in the middle, but in the time of Moving Day, or “Rent Day” as it was sometimes called, it was all left until May 1st (and in later years, the days leading up to the 1st).

Therefore, cartmen would raise their prices as high as they liked. But in 1890, the city started to regulate moving rates. As Apartment Therapy found in a historic New York Times article, “it cost $2 per one-horse truckload within two miles and a whopping 50 cents per extra mile.”

And aside from the cost, it was utter chaos. Ephemeral New York quotes an 1885 Times article about the day: “Everybody in a hurry, smashing mirrors in his haste, and carefully guarding boot boxes from harm. Sofas that go out sound will go in maimed … bedscrews will be lost in the confusion, and many a good piece of furniture badly bruised in consequence.”

Even schools were closed on May 1, as it was estimated that a million people moved simultaneously at the height of Moving Day.

By the end of the 19th century, many New Yorkers spent their summers in the suburbs and moved back upon their return, making October 1 a second Moving Day. When WWII began, it was nearly impossible to find enough moving men on one day, so the tradition began to lose steam. And once rent control went into effect shortly after, the custom was erased completely.

Editor’s Note: This story was originally published on May 1, 2017, and has since been updated.

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