The Lower East Side holds some of the oldest housing stock in Manhattan, and almost none of it was designed around storage. The tenement conversions along Orchard, Ludlow, Rivington and Norfolk went up when a closet was a luxury and the fire escape was the balcony. Walk into a renovated one bedroom on Broome Street today and you will often find an excellent kitchen, exposed brick, and nowhere at all to put a winter coat.

In Order to Succeed has organized New York homes and managed New York moves since 1998. On the Lower East Side that means working inside the building you actually have, whether that is a fourth floor walk up with a stair turn too tight for a sofa, a Grand Street co-op with a board and a service elevator schedule, or a newer apartment at Essex Crossing that trades square footage for light.

What Makes a Lower East Side Project Different

The buildings are old and the access is tight

Much of the neighborhood is four and five story walk ups with no elevator. That changes everything about a move: how many people we need on the crew, how long the carry takes, which pieces of furniture can physically make the turn on a tenement staircase, and how long a truck can sit on a street like Orchard or Ludlow before it becomes everyone’s problem. We walk the path before move day rather than discovering it on move day, and the floor count is priced in from the start instead of appearing as a surcharge at the curb.

Storage has to go vertical

When there is no coat closet, no linen closet and no pantry, the only direction left is up. We measure and specify full height systems, use the dead space above doors and inside deep window reveals, build under bed and under seating storage into the plan, and set up an off site rotation so the apartment only holds the season you are actually in. We manage the storage vendor and the transfers, so you are not the one meeting a truck on a Tuesday morning.

Building rules are not optional here

The Grand Street and Seward Park co-ops, and most of the newer Essex Crossing buildings, require a certificate of insurance from every vendor, a reserved service elevator and a move completed inside set hours. We file the certificate with the managing agent, book the elevator, confirm the building’s permitted window and hold the movers to it. This is the single most common reason a New York move falls apart, and it is entirely preventable.

What We Do on the Lower East Side

Moving Into or Out of the Lower East Side

We are not a moving company. We are the firm that hires the moving company on your behalf, vets it, negotiates it and then supervises it on the day. We handle appraisals and staging, coordinate vendors and contractors, run the packing, and set up the new space so it works from the first night. Because we do not own the truck, our advice about the truck is not a sales pitch.

Three routes come up constantly here. Lower East Side to Brooklyn, one stop over the Williamsburg Bridge, where a walk up on one end frequently meets a walk up on the other. Lower East Side to Fairfield County or Westchester, where the challenge is that a full apartment does not fill a house and clients underbuy. And the reverse, a house in the suburbs downsizing into an LES apartment, where the entire project is deciding what does not come. We work in all of those markets with the same project manager on both ends.

The Lower East Side Streets and Buildings We Cover

We work the full neighborhood, from Houston Street south to Canal Street and East Broadway, and from the Bowery east to the FDR. That includes Orchard, Ludlow, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Clinton, Rivington, Broome, Delancey and Allen, the Grand Street co-ops, the Seward Park co-operative houses, the East Broadway corridor and the Essex Crossing buildings around Essex Market.

Why Lower East Side Clients Call Us

We have been doing this since 1998, which in a neighborhood that has changed as fast as this one means we have organized the tenement walk ups, the co-ops and the new construction, often in the same year. Our team is made up of professional organizers, move managers and interior stylists rather than laborers, and the same project manager stays with you from the consultation to the last box. Our clients have included [Savannah Guthrie, Laverne Cox and Tamron Hall], and most of our work still arrives by referral.

Call our New York office at (212) 721-2222 or request a complimentary consultation. We will walk the apartment, tell you honestly what the building will and will not allow, and give you a fixed price before anything begins.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you work in walk-up buildings on the Lower East Side?

Yes. Much of the LES housing stock is prewar tenement conversions on Orchard, Ludlow, Rivington and Delancey with four and five floor walk-ups and narrow stair turns. We size the crew for the carry, plan what can physically make the turn, and price it up front so there are no move-day surprises.

How do you organize a small LES apartment?

Vertically and ruthlessly. Prewar conversions often have no coat or linen closet at all, so we build height into every wall, use the space above doors and under beds, and set up a seasonal off-site rotation. New construction around Essex Crossing has better closets but less floor area, which changes the approach.

How much does a professional organizer cost on the Lower East Side?

Quoted flat after a consultation. A studio or one-bedroom typically runs [$X to $Y]. Walk-up moves are priced with the floor count included from the start rather than added on move day.

Can you handle loading and parking restrictions on LES streets?

Yes. Orchard, Ludlow and Essex are narrow and a truck cannot sit indefinitely. We schedule the load window, arrange any permits or curb space needed, and stage boxes so truck time is short. In elevator buildings we file the certificate of insurance and reserve the service elevator.

Which Lower East Side streets and buildings do you cover?

The full neighborhood, from Houston south to Canal and Bowery east to the FDR, including Essex Crossing, the Seward Park co-ops, Grand Street and the East Broadway corridor.

Other Neighborhoods and Boroughs We Serve

The Lower East Side is one of the Manhattan neighborhoods we cover. Our team works across the city and into the surrounding boroughs.

Every community we serve. Elsewhere in Fairfield County we work in Greenwich, Riverside, Old Greenwich, Cos Cob, Stamford, Darien, New Canaan, Norwalk, Rowayton, Wilton, Westport, Greens Farms, Weston, Easton, Fairfield, Southport and Greenfield Hill. We also serve New Haven and Litchfield County, including Kent, Washington and Salisbury. In New York we work in Queens, Westchester County and The Hamptons. On Florida’s Gulf Coast we work in Sarasota, Tampa, Lakewood Ranch and Siesta Key.

Moving between states? We handle both ends of the move in Connecticut and Florida’s Gulf Coast.

See our full New York service area on our New York professional organizing and moving concierge page.