The Best Storage Units in New York

Manhattan Mini Storage, storage-mart.com/manhattan-mini

Five people told us about simple, price-transparent experiences at different branches of Manhattan Mini Storage (from $30 a month), which has 17 locations in the borough. Andrea Whittle, the features director at W magazine who has been using the 110th Street site to store the contents of her one-bedroom, says the sign-up process was “seamless. The website has a useful guide that helped me estimate the size of the unit I would need. They gave me a coupon code for a moving company they work with, which I then quickly booked.” Brand consultant Michael Williams, who now uses Manhattan Mini Storage after a decade of trying other facilities, says the company’s locations typically have “a good ­loading-dock/parking area, which makes it easy whether you’re driving in or taking an Uber.” (He does, however, recommend the Chelsea location over the Spring Street one to avoid Holland Tunnel traffic.) J.Mueser creative director Matthew Woodruff appreciates that the key card gets you 24/7 access, meaning he can use the space in an emergency: “I recently stopped by to change into a pink suit — obviously exactly the thing you’d keep in a storage unit — for a friend’s pink-themed birthday party.”

Liberty Moving & Storage, libertymoving.com

Author David ­Coggins recently moved out of his West Village apartment of 12 years, which he’d filled to the brim with “objets, or what some people like to call clutter.” Not able to take all of his possessions with him to the new apartment he shares with his girlfriend, he needed a company that could handle both moving and storage. Bombas founder Randy Goldberg, a friend of Coggins’s, recommended Liberty for its reasonable prices (from $70 a month), speed, and professionalism. “They did a meticulous — even rigorous — analysis over a video chat, where I showed them all my possessions, and I got a ­specific quote down to the square foot,” Coggins says. The move took slightly less time than Liberty had estimated; the company finished carting off his carefully wrapped books and furniture and lowered the quote accordingly.

Crozier, crozierfinearts.com

Art adviser Todd Levin, who has helped clients find everything from Rembrandts to Basquiats for 35 years, says that for storing high-value art, he (and almost everyone else in the industry) goes to Crozier. The storage company (from $100 a month) has serviced collectors for more than 40 years and is “the standard go-to used by the main auction houses,” says Levin, referring to Phillips, Sotheby’s, and Christie’s. “Everything is temperature controlled, humidity controlled, and the alarm systems connect to both the fire department and the police, which is crucial when it comes to keeping insurance costs down.” (Crozier tells us its units are kept at “museum standard,” meaning a climate of 50 percent humidity, 70 degrees for paintings, and 35 percent humidity, 55 degrees for photography.) While the city has other storage facilities with similar conditions, like Trimaxion in Long Island City, Levin says that is “more of a General Motors than Crozier’s Bentley experience,” in part because of Crozier’s menu of services: Besides storage, it provides international handling and on-site gallery rooms for showing works to potential buyers.

Domaine, domainestorage.com

Jamie Wolff, a partner of Chambers Street Wines, says that once you’ve accrued more than a few cases of wine, proper wine storage becomes necessary: “Keeping them under the bed and running the air-conditioning is not appropriate.” Many of his customers, Wolff says, use Domaine ($285 per year for every ten cases) for its proper storage conditions (55 degrees year-round, kept horizontal, for red and white) and in-house wine expertise: If you buy wine from another collector or vineyard and ship directly to Domaine, the staff will inspect the bottles before adding to your reserves. And last year, Domaine helped customize a software, so its website can track your collection and its current value and will even notify you when it’s time to uncork certain bottles.

Pologeorgis, 143 W. 29th St.; pologeorgis.com

Fur coats don’t fare particularly well in heat or sunlight — both can cause rotting and discoloration. Longtime Upper West Sider Lisa Zaretsky owns an “embarrassing” collection of “20-odd” coats and keeps hers with Pologeorgis, a coat showroom with a dedicated floor for storage downstairs kept at 56 degrees with controlled humidity. Pologeorgis staff “come to your apartment, pack everything up neatly, and off they go,” says Zaretsky. They’ll inspect coats while the company is storing them and make repairs (optionally, for a fee); when customers want one back, “they’ll drop them off within two days,” Zaretsky says, adding that other places take a week or two. Plus, the prices are reasonable. Pologeorgis charges $95 per garment, for storage from April to October, plus pickup and delivery. And those prices have hardly gone up, according to retired publishing executive Connie Anne Harris, who previously worked for Vogue, Glamour, and InStyle and has gone to Pologeorgis for decades, calling owner Nick Pologeorgis “a genius.”