Every six months or so, my little prodigy Spalding, grows out of his Armani, and I have to have him chauffeured to Barneys for a new fitting. That leaves the problem of what to do with his barely used cast-offs? Do I really want to put them on Craigslist and have the masses calling and coming to my door? And since I’ve calculated that I earn $18,247 an hour based on a 24/7 clock, is it even worth my time? Plus I’d have to negotiate it all with his baby-mama in Tribeca, but that’s a whole other mess.
There is probably some relevance in my quandary for the rest of Long Island City, albeit on a less exalted and dramatic scale: What do I do with used clothing, toys, books, etc., that my child …umm, or myself, has grown out of? And how can I do it in a simpler manner than the trials and tribulations of Craigslist?
Now there is a solution to your problems, and it is called TenantKing.
TenantKing was conceived as a hyperlocal network for the residential high-rise buildings of Manhattan. Since three of the four founders lived in LIC, they realized it was the perfect micro-neighborhood to incubate their idea. Thus, TenantKing is born and bred in Long Island City!
In addition to selling merchandise, the website is intended to be a place for the LIC community to communicate. For example, a recent listing asked about where to find a local basketball game.
The founders have backgrounds ranging in web development, online marketing, real estate, and finance. Though they thought up the idea in 2012, they decided to implement it in 2013 after TF Cornerstone disabled their own in-house version of local classifieds. At that point the residents – including the CEO Michael Noormagi – were in need of an alternative. TenantKing saw the void and decided they could offer a solution. The concept was to build a simple online marketplace for LIC residents to be able to quickly buy and sell their excess items without having to worry about logistics or shipping costs.
According to Michael “The demographics of Long Island City, with it’s increasing population of young professionals, proved to be the perfect testing ground. The waterfront high-rise buildings are home to nearly 9,000 people and at least one of them will likely be interested in buying your IKEA couch that you want to replace.”
And if you sell that couch, then you’ll have a little scratch to spend on a bender at Alewife, or at least be able to buy Michael a drink to thank him for helping to unload it easily, as it’s one of his favorite bars in LIC. As for myself, does anyone need a kids size 6 pair of Versace snowpants?
TenantKing.com – get rid of your stuff …and then buy someone else’s!
Summer N says
March 3, 2014 at 10:05 amHi!
Yay for swapping possessions, and good luck TenantKing!
I must say I’m still a big fan of Craigslist, though, especially with their new mapping feature that lets you easily check what’s available in our neighborhood in LIC.
– Go to newyork.craigslist.org
– Click “All for sale”
– Click “Queens” on the top tab
– Click “map” under the grey bar – in the little list of “list – thumb – gallery – map”
– (Or, just skip to this link: http://newyork.craigslist.org/search/sss/que?useMap=1&zoomToPosting=&catAbb=sss&query=&minAsk=&maxAsk=&excats=)
– Search “long island city” and zoom
– Click a little bubble to see everything available in a given location – for example, right now there are 19 items in the 4720 Center Blvd building that are up on CL.
Anonymous says
March 3, 2014 at 12:31 pmI don’t feel safe posting my personal items and my location publicly on a website that is accessible to everyone. I like the TenantKing idea, since they seem to verify all the users – it is asking for an invitation code to sign up.
Amadeo Plaza says
March 3, 2014 at 12:02 pmI personally use TenantKing for connecting with my neighbors and foster some sense of community. I know it was built with the idea of classifieds in mind, but I feel like LIC (and Queens in general) has a struggling persona, and ownership over its denizens. Hopefully this’ll help. We just need to get more people using it!
Tenant King says
March 3, 2014 at 4:31 pmThanks for writing about Tenant King on LIC.talk! We’re proud to say we’re from LIC and happy to report we’re getting more of our neighbors signed up everyday.
@Summer M, we’ve all used Craigslist in the past, but personally, we felt a little exposed opening up our information on a public site like that. That’s why we made Tenant King for verified users only, to ensure everyone on the service is a real person living in LIC.
Any suggestions on how to improve the service? We’re always on the lookout for new ideas. Also, check out our blog to keep updated with the latest news: blog.tenantking.com.