May 1st used to be moving day for everyone in New York City.

If you think the crowds at Manhattan's Rockefeller Center get crazy during the holidays, imagine the majority of the city's population packing the streets with beds and other personal belongings on a single day of the year. That's how it was for the better part of two centuries for New Yorkers, thanks to a colonial-era tradition that may have stemmed from the English celebration of May Day, or at least traditions brought over by European settlers.

Of course, the mood among residents was typically more frenzied than celebratory by the time leases expired May 1; an 1855 New York Times article described the scene as "Everybody in a hurry, smashing mirrors in his haste … and many a good piece of furniture badly bruised in consequence."

(The chaos stemmed in part from the fact that landlords had to notify tenants of rent increases on February 1, which were set to take effect three months later; everyone who didn’t agree with the new prices had to be out by 9 a.m. May 1.)

It was a harrowing experience for all but the cartmen who jacked up their fees for the day, prompting the city to finally regulate rates for movers in 1890.

By the early 20th century, May 1 had given way to October 1 as New York's moving day, with the tumultuous proceedings settling into more of "an exact science." However, the annual moving day custom in NYC soon went the way of the horse and buggy, due to a few factors. World War II drew most of the able-bodied movers into service, and a postwar housing shortage, along with the subsequent establishment of rent-control laws and other housing regulations, reduced the number of the city's moves in general.

These days, while moving in New York is certainly still stressful, at least most of the city isn't doing it at once.

Amazingly, New York was far from unique in all of this. In Quebec a moving day was passed into law in the mid-18th century. Landowners had been hiring people to work their land and sending them on their way just as winter approached. This was seen as pretty unfair – which it was – and a law was introduced that made them provide accommodation over winter.

This law eventually evolved to include urban leases and stated that they must end on 30 April and begin on 1 May. (The date was later pushed back to 1 July, so more children could complete a full year at the same school.)

Chicago got in on the act too: during the late 19th century, a third of its households would move at once, until in 1911 the law changed and renters could move year-round. Nonetheless, 1 May remains a popular moving day there. And in Quebec, 115,000 city residents move in Montreal around 1 July each year.

If this is the first you’ve heard of moving day, then you might be wondering how on earth a practice that inconvenient lasted for that long without everyone realizing it was a bad idea. That said, doesn’t a part of you think it sounds curious? In 1825, the New York Mirror wrote, “The spirits of anarchy and confusion might have roamed with delight through our streets on the first of May.”

Word of the Day

"Flourishing"

Its definition is: growing or developing in a healthy or vigorous way, especially as the result of a particularly favorable environment.

Here's a sentence using it in the context you provided: "After months of dedicated rehabilitation, she was finally flourishing, embracing a new chapter filled with joy and vitality."