There's a great story behind this one. By late April (97) Newman and I had both secured internships/jobs down in NYC. The problem was that we had nowhere to live. We had applied to NYU, but were rejected because our applications were a day or two too late.
After we left school for the semester and right before I was able to head to Europe the two of us were still w/out housing (of course, I could have lived in Queens again, but who wants to do that?). With few options left, Josh and I decided to head down to NYC, grab a copy of the Village Voice and see if we could find a place to stay for the summer in less than 24 hours. (in hindsight, an impossibilty)
We made our seperate treks down, met at Grand Central (?) and spend the morning following worthless leads and pulling tabs off "Roomate Needed" flyers. Frustrated and tired by early afternoon, we decided to march over to NYU's Housing Offices and battle.
We walked in there knowing we had no chance in hell. NYU housing isn't easy to come by and we had sent out application in late. Friends at Syracuse who had send their applications in weeks earlier were getting denied. Before we walked in I said to Josh, "Wherever this goes, just back me up."
We went in, asked to find out the status of our application (knowing damn-well that we had already been rejected). We both expected them to dig through the files, tell us we were denied, we would argue and they would politely ask us to suck it up and leave.
Instead, the woman returned empty handed - no file on record. Before I could glance at Josh he was already knee-deep into one his finest, most brilliant acting performances, explaining to the woman that we had sent our application in weeks ago - months ago! How could be be deined! We need this housing! How could they have screwed up so much?! This is ridiculous!
The woman apologized, explaining there was nothing she could do. We argued further, each of our comments further fueling this lie. Eventually she agreed that if we could prove that we has faxed our application in on time, she would try her best to accomodate us in NYU's already overcrouded summer housing program.
At this opportunity, Josh promised we would return shortly, our minds both thinking back to the fake ID scams we had pulled in the past and that forging documents to prove we had sent the application in on time would be a piece of cake.
We hurried over the the Kinko's at Astor Place, called my Mom and had her fax down the copy of the application I has kept (with the fax cover page and fax transmital data on the top of each page). Of course when the faxes arrived at Kinko's they were stamped with the date of the actual fax transmission - a few days late. With a little cut and paste job, a bit of white out and a few extra photocopies, we doctored the papers to look like they were sent in 3 week prior - well before the deadline.
An hour or so later, we returned to NYU's Housing Office - forged papers in hand - and presented them to the director of student housing. After seeing that were responsible, honest kids that actually sent their application in on time (yeah, right) she assured us she'd do whatever possible to help us get housing for the summer.
Well, we left NYC knowing we did all that we could and I made the trip home with my fingers crossed. A few days later, we received a call from NYU. They apologized once again before offering us what is probably one of the sweetest spots in all of NYU's housing - a 6 room suite on Broome Street (in SoHo).
I left for Europe a week or so after that mess was resolved and was pleasently surprise to learn upon my return that our 6 room suite was three times the size of the I am currently living in (I'm telling you, this place was huge), in an amazing location which was a 7 minute from the ad agency where I worked, and housed 10 kids - five of us who were from Syracuse. Oh yeah, we also lived right below 12 hot girls from Alpha Phi - a small added bonus.
That summer was a great time. Take a look at some of the pics we acquired and the infamous quoteboard as a reminder of the madness.