Until WW2, over a million NYC renters moved on the same day: May 1st at 9am. Every. Single. Year. Started with a Dutch tradition, codified by New York law in 1820. Most leases were oral agreements with no set term, so they all expired on May 1st by default. The city turned into pure chaos. Farmers rolled in with wagons, the streets were packed with furniture and people, and nobody could escape it if they rented. "On the 1st of May the city of New York has the appearance of sending off a population flying from the plague, or of a town which had surrendered on condition of carrying away all their goods and chattels. Rich furniture and ragged furniture, carts, wagons, and drays, ropes, canvas, and straw, packers, porters, and draymen, white, yellow, and black, occupy the streets from east to west, from north to south, on this day." So how did it finally end? Not by actually fixing the stupid system. WW2 labor shortages meant not enough able-bodied men to move people. Add housing shortages and rent control, and the whole tradition just collapsed. Basically, a century of chaos needed a world war to solve what could have been fixed with, you know, normal lease terms. Peak NYC.