The autographed photographs of former celebrity customers such as Joan Rivers, Bill Cosby, Liv Tyler and Keifer Sutherland line the walls of Moving Ahead’s Garden City Park offices.
But they are only a few of the customers Moving Ahead has serviced since 1983, when founder John Tarko, started the company in Bayside, Queens with just one van.
Today the Garden City Park company has 17 vans and more than 40 employees.
“I expect my workers to do the job right,” longtime friend and general manager Larry Armstrong said in explaining the company’s success. “In this business you can’t just walk in and expect to get a job. Everyone who comes here has to have moving experience, and we’ve had guys here who have been working here for years now. You pick up little knacks to moving stuff – you think you need some big guy to move stuff, but honestly some of my best movers are medium-built guys.”
Also setting them apart, Armstrong said, is Moving Ahead’s attention to quality work and their extensive business in Manhattan.
Armstrong said the company usually performs 20 moves a day from private homes to apartments, and the move is typically arranged a month in advance.
“Sometimes though we get calls from people who tell us they want to move within the next hour,” Armstrong said. “Something which does happen and we can always handle.”
Moving Ahead also offers self-storage services in their 25,000-square-foot warehouse at 101 5th Avenue that houses 175 wooden storage vaults. Each vault is about five foot by seven by eight and costs $65 a month to rent.
“You can get a bedroom set and about 20 boxes in the vaults,” Armstrong said. “Getting everything to fit is an art, or like playing a game of Tetris.”
The Garden City Park moving company came into contact with its famous clientele after their moving services expanded into Manhattan, when the company acquired an account from Manhattan Mini Storage more than 20 years ago, Armstrong said.
“Back in the beginning we were advertising in Pennysavers and just getting whatever jobs we could,” Armstrong said. “I knew we had made our mark when we got an account with Manhattan Mini Storage. They would recommend to people our company, and after a year we were their No. 1 recommended moving company.”
Armstrong said Tarko has always been a hard worker and his creed has always been to do the right thing.
“He is a very hands on guy,” Armstrong said. “We don’t want something for nothing and we’re not trying to get rich.”
One of the biggest moves the company ever did was moving the archives for the Radio City Music Hall, Armstrong said.
As the general manager, Armstrong oversees day-to-day operations such as billing and accounting work, as well as making sure things are in their right place in the storage area.
He is married with three sons and lives in Mt. Sinai.
Moving Ahead has had a few moves itself after going from Bayside, to New Hyde Park, to Floral Park and finally settling in Garden City Park, where it has been for the last 15 years, according to Armstrong.
Armstrong said consumers should make sure the mover they are using is licensed by the state Department of Transportation, as required by law. He also encourages consumers to check with the Better Business Bureau before hiring a mover.
“You get a lot of unlicensed movers out there trying to make a quick buck,” Armstrong said. “You also have these moving companies that don’t even wrap any furniture or even some who use shrink wrap, which doesn’t protect the items. We use heavy moving blankets and boxes for everything we move.”
Armstrong said he “fell into” the business when Tarko asked him to help out, and saw it as an opportunity.
“I loved it and stayed with it,” Armstrong said. “A lot of the times you are doing the same thing, but you are always going somewhere different every time.”
He jokingly added with a smile, “It’s something I took for granted now that I am in an office all day.”
