MORNING BULLETIN: TINY APARTMENTS UNVEILED; 2 CATHOLIC SCHOOLS TO CLOSE AS 1 IS SAVED
Photo by Avi at 72nd Street Bagels.
January 23, 2013 Weather: Partly Cloudy, High of 22 Degrees.
Notices:
Junot Diaz with John Leguizamo, bar trivia and more local events today on our calendar.
There’s an interesting event put on by the Park West Neighborhood History Group next week for those interested in neighborhood history: Monday, January 28, 2013 6-8 PM, FREE presentation Children’s Aid Society/Frederick Douglass Center at 885 Columbus Avenue at 104 Street. “Frederick Douglass Houses History” Speakers will cover pre-Douglass neighborhood history, the building of Douglass Houses and re-shaping the Upper West Side, growing up in Douglass, and its future.
News:
The full list of area Catholic Schools expected to close at the end of this school year was released by the Catholic Church yesterday. St. Gregory the Great on 90th Street, which was slated to close because of funding issues, will now stay open because it submitted a proposal “that included viable long-term plans and will remain open.” St. Agnes High School and Holy Name of Jesus elementary school, however, are both slated to close. (Archdiocese of NY)
The problem with New York apartments is that they’re not tiny enough! New designs unveiled yesterday will squeeze people into apartments that are 250 to 370 square feet. The first project will be on East 29th Street, but the tiny developments could spread elsewhere: “Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg hopes [they] will be the first in a wave of tiny apartments.” It’s one solution to the escalating housing crunch. But some people aren’t impressed: “I wouldn’t keep a dog in that size room,” said one woman, indignantly. (NY Times)
Neighborhoods hit hard by Hurricane Sandy still have a long way to go, as this photo gallery shows. (Atlantic)
Re: the above “I wouldn’t keep a dog in that size room,” said one woman, indignantly.”
AHHH, BUT YOU NEGLECTED THE NEXT LINE OF THE STORY, viz: “She declined to give her name, but she said she lived in New Jersey.”
SO, HUMPHHH–hhh … ANOTHER MUCUS-RIDDEN (i.e. “snotty”) BRIDGE-AND-TUNNEL-TYPE determined to show how superior her town is to that wicked big city that she would-never-live-in-but-it’s-okay-once-in-a-while-to-go-get-culture-like-The-Lion-King-or-Spiderman-or-Disney-On-Ice.
Above her sarcastic remark was this, from a real New Yorker, A 20-something female, who told the reporter, ““In New York City, space is limited, and we’re willing to settle for what we can get,” she said. “In New York, people will live in a garbage can!”
YOU GO, GIRL!
For three years right after college, I lived with my boyfriend in tiny East Village apartments that were less than 400 SF. It’s somewhat reasonable to live in that small space, but not for the absurd market-driven prices just for the phrase “1 bedroom” attached to the apartment. If Bloomberg is going to unleash a ton of tiny apartments on the market, there should be some reserved for recent college graduates at a reasonable non-market-dictated rate with a limited duration during which the tenants can renew the lease. Why should older generations who happen to be lucky enough to be in rent stabilized apartments be the only ones to benefit from some kind of housing cushion in NYC? How about the youth? Young graduates are eager to be productive, hard-working members of NY society, so why not encourage their presence here?
As we consider the concept of shoehorning humans into these tiny living spaces because of the supposed lack of other living space, we should also consider how many multi-family dwellings have been consumed — in our neighborhood alone — by the nouveau riche to convert into palatial single-family, multi-story palaces.
Can anyone supply a figure for how many middle class, multi-family brownstone apartment houses have been converted in the past ten years or so by the rich to one-family, four (or five) floor luxury townhouses?
Even in the larger apartment buildings, probably everyone has seen the purchase and combination of multiple apartments to create luxury housing for one family where once two or even three had lived. How much available housing has been lost to this consumption by the privileged few?
Let’s not demonize rent control and rent stabilization, which have allowed middle-class people to keep their homes and provide stability in the neighborhood for many years. The problem is that available housing, once apportioned somewhat evenly across the many, is now being gobbled up, combined and taken off the market by the wealthy few.
Those displaced by this monied feeding frenzy need to live *somewhere* — and now all we can come up with are shoeboxes. And those proposing it have the audacity to celebrate that fact!
Does anyone else see an imbalance here? Why are we applauding the marginalization of those not wealthy enough to afford grossly excessive living space?
Is there *any* hope for a middle class in this City, or on the Upper Wealth Side, any more?
Rent control is a good in concept, but it is horribly abused. My next door neighbor makes far more than what Obama considers wealthy ($250+) but pays less than $1K for a 3 bed with balcony on Riverside Drive. Rent control. another neighbor pays a mere $600 for his RSD apt., while having a weekend home in the Hamptons. Rent control. What a joke. I pay more than both of these jerks for my studio apt and I make less than half the income. So again, tell me how great rent control is.
And how large is Mayor Bloomberg’s mansion?
You have to love Mayor Bloombucks. This guy is so out of touch with how the average person lives.
An article in the Daily News said that you could fit 37 of these small units inside of Bloombuck’s McMansion. So one of these units must be — what about these size of his guest bathroom?