I survived NYC without AC for three years. Here’s why I finally caved

Nora (a pseudonym) is a Californian who relocated to New York City after going to college on the East Coast. She works for a financial company, which helps pay for her passion projects in audio editing. She shares how she survived NYC’s sweltering summers without AC since 2021, and why she finally bought one. 

I moved to New York in the middle of a hurricane on my birthday. It was just me on the floor on my mattress with a hurricane raging outside while I Facetimed two of my friends for a little birthday celebration. It actually was really fun.

When I first moved in, living without AC wasn’t so bad. I’ve lived in very hot climates. I’ve lived on the East Coast for a good amount of my life. And in California, you don’t tend to have air conditioning in your house—or at least I didn’t. I’m used to dealing with heat.

[Editor’s note: Brick Underground’s Inside Stories features first-person accounts of dramatic, real-life NYC real estate experiences. We are presenting this again in case you missed it.]

Can’t live with it, can live without it

My first summer in New York was deep and utter chaos for so many reasons.

I was in and out of the city and out of the country to places that were much hotter than here—I went to Israel for a friend’s wedding and for work, and I went back to California.

My roommate caved and got an AC unit immediately, so I got a little bit of a residual breeze from that. But here’s the other thing: I technically had an air conditioner, it just did not work. It was so large and it did not fit in our window because we were on the first floor and we had bars on the window. There was a little alcove for it, but we couldn’t put it in the window without it falling into the room. 

It was already such a pain to put up and take down. I also thought, “I can’t buy an air conditioner if I have an air conditioner. But also I can’t use the air conditioner I have. So I guess it just has to be this way.”

How I survived

I made excuses for myself, like: this is much more environmentally conscious. I also had a really good fan. I would sleep with only my sheets and not my blanket. And I stayed really hydrated. I also think that summer was not as bad. 

I also froze a lot of ice packs in the freezer. I started making a lot of cold brew iced teas. (Staying hydrated was definitely one of my top solutions.) I got a face ice roller and I would do that a lot because it felt nice. And having plants in your room helps. They also just make me happier. 

Why I caved

I did decide to buy an AC after a couple of things happened. 

My mom sent me an air purifier, which was helpful when smoke from the Canadian fires was bad. I would put my hands over the part that blows purified air into the room and think, “Man, it’d be really nice to have a fan in here.” My really nice fan had broken.

Also, it’s been really humid already this summer. I recently moved to Crown Heights and I only have one window, so I was still debating whether I wanted to take up some of that window space with an AC unit. But when the fires were happening—and I’m sure they will continue to happen—the air was so awful.

Finally, I had a lot of people coming to visit me this summer and sleeping in my room on an air mattress. While I can subject myself to the heat, if other people are staying with me, I can’t make them deal with it too. They deserve better.

Why I feel like I made the right call

We experienced the hottest day globally on record, which is so concerning for global warming reasons. But that’s just one piece of it—the smoke from the Canadian fires also pushed me.

I know that AC is not the end-all-be-all solution. But it is what we’ve got, which is sad and unfortunate and makes me want to think a lot more about the environment. I’ve been reading a lot about when the temperature is so high that it can be lethal to people. 

My mentality in the past has always been, “I’m tough. I can deal with it. I’ll have a thick skin about it and it’ll be fine.” But seeing all of the news about global warming makes me think that I’m going to need more than a thick skin to get through a NYC summer.