tell-us-about-your-worst-new-york-apartment

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/201 ... t/?ref=realestate#respond

that article reinforces every negative stereotype i have about transplanted new yorkers

"he lives in a 3x5 room and his feet stick out of the room when he sleeps because it's so small. does he care? no - he's in NEW YORK BABY! WOOOOO"

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Who friggin' cares?

Guess we aren't dicey enough -- we are no Bed Stuy!

If anyone is looking for a place Downtown, short walk to the Grove PATH subway, there is a duplex apartment - 2 full floors with 3 or 4 bedrooms at 301 Newark Avenue -- I think the rent is only $1600 - so it could be a great cheap share!

Call Ram at 201.653.5596 or see him in his store at same address -- he is there from 10am to 7pm most days.


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Not a single mention of JC...

The Big Squeeze

New Yorkers in their 20s are living in ever smaller spaces and moving to neighborhoods once considered dicey.



Abe Cavin Quezada pays $500 for his 6-by-10 bedroom in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn and Sarah Walsh pays $800 for her 6 1/2-by-8 1/2 bedroom on the Lower East Side.

The New York Times
By CONSTANCE ROSENBLUM
Published: November 12, 2010

ABE CAVIN QUEZADA, a 22-year-old aspiring music producer, lives with two roommates in a three-bedroom apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Mr. Cavin Quezada, who works as an unpaid intern at Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village, has kind words for his building, a renovated tenement near Marcus Garvey Boulevard, and for his apartment, for which he pays $500 a month and has a 10-by-6-foot bedroom. But as for the neighborhood, he is less enthusiastic.

?Before this I was living in a loft in Bushwick,? said Mr. Cavin Quezada, who grew up outside Washington. ?This apartment is nicer, and has more amenities, but the neighborhood is noticeably fishier. In Bushwick, I never really felt threatened. Now, the sounds around are more aggressive. I?ll see 20 guys ride by on motorcycles, or hear gunshots outside my window.

?And one day,? he said, ?in the middle of a Sunday afternoon, I saw a guy on a motorcycle with a handgun. It was not a reassuring sight.?

Mr. Cavin Quezada often works until 2 a.m. or later, and the first few nights after moving here, he considered asking one of his roommates to meet him at the subway after work and walk him back to the apartment.

Does his mother, who?s paying his rent, worry about him? ?I don?t think I?ve given her enough details for her to worry,? Mr. Cavin Quezada said.

New York City was home to nearly 1.28 million people in their 20s last year, up from 1.21 million in 1980. In many respects, Mr. Cavin Quezada?s situation mirrors the way large numbers in that age group are living, three years after the Great Recession began.

To be sure, earlier generations had their share of hard-luck housing stories. But statistical evidence suggests that today?s new arrivals have a tougher struggle to live well, or even adequately, compared with their counterparts of just a decade ago. Battered by the one-two punch of persistent unemployment and the city?s high housing costs, they are squeezing into ever smaller spaces and living in neighborhoods once considered dicey and remote.

They are doubling, tripling, quadrupling and even quintupling up. According to the New York City Planning Department, 46 percent of New Yorkers in their 20s who moved to the city from out of state between 2006 and 2008 lived with people to whom they were not related, up from 36 percent in 2000.

Moving back in with parents is fast becoming the new normal. Those who do fly the family nest are paying an ever larger percentage of their often meager income for rent. Between 2006 and 2008, according to the Planning Department, the portion of New Yorkers in their 20s who moved to the city from other states and who paid at least 35 percent of their income for rent was 42 percent, up from 39 percent in 2000.

Even young people in high-paying fields like finance have to make sacrifices. There?s the investment banker who can afford only a 450-square-foot studio, and the financial analyst who lives in a third-floor walk-up studio illegally divided into two rooms.

In the words of Allison Gumbel, a 28-year-old photographer who lives in a third-floor walk-up in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn: ?There?s always a compromise. And when I say compromise, I don?t just mean that you don?t have nice floors or good light.?

Still young adults swarm to the city, especially those eager to pursue careers in finance, the arts, media and other fields for which New York has long served as the nation?s heart. They come to find work, to find one another and to hang out in neighborhoods like Williamsburg and the Lower East Side that have become almost geographic extensions of college dorm life. Here are some tales from the front lines.

Stefan Rurak, 26, a furniture maker, has lived for two years in a former furniture store in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. His roommate has the front room; Mr. Rurak has the 9-by-12-foot windowless space in the rear, for which he pays $325 a month. The arrangement isn?t legal, but it allows Mr. Rurak, an Oberlin graduate who moved to New York five years ago, to pursue work he loves.

?I really lucked out,? he said. ?Without a doubt, I couldn?t be doing what I?m doing now without this space.?

?Like every artist,? he added, ?I came to New York after college. I never planned on staying this long, but I did various things. I worked in construction, I worked as an art handler. Opportunities came up.
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?It?s not that I like New York so much. But things happen here that wouldn?t happen in other places.?

And he has only good things to say about his neighborhood. ?It?s not like Williamsburg, at least not yet,? he said. ?You don?t see all those college kids in tight pants. It?s not quote unquote hot.?

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Sam Tolman, a 21-year-old with a passion for cinema, lives with his brother, Henry, 23, in a two-story house on 246th Street in Riverdale, in the far northwestern Bronx. The house is owned by the grandmother of a family friend, who still lives there, and the brothers split the $500 rent for their first-floor space.

?We?re very lucky,? said Sam Tolman, who earned enough working as a waiter last summer to cover three months of his share of the rent. ?We have a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom.? Each brother has his own bedroom. Visiting friends from Providence, R.I., where the Tolmans grew up, marvel at how much space they have.

Sam Tolman has two internships. He edits video for the Web site of the magazine published by Frank151, and he is part of the video team of BreakThru Radio, an Internet radio station. The first job is unpaid; the second provides a weekly stipend of $50.

But the commute is punishing. To get to his Frank151 job, which starts at 11 a.m., Mr. Tolman leaves the house at 9:30 and walks 15 minutes to catch the No. 7 bus. That takes him to the No. 1 train, from which he switches to the 2, the L and the R before arriving at his office.

The commute also crimps his social life.

?I?m really grateful to have a nice place for such a low cost,? Mr. Tolman said. ?But I don?t feel as if I?m part of the city. Most of my friends are in Manhattan, and going out is a pain.?

Still, he added cheerfully, the arrangement suits him for now. ?I love my jobs,? he said. ?This is the price you pay to live in New York. To have what I want, you have to suffer a bit.?

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Sarah Walsh, a 24-year-old from Rye, N.Y., lives in what she describes as a ?crummy little apartment,? a third-floor walk-up on Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side. She has two roommates, and her share of the rent is $800.

?I was extraordinarily lucky to find it,? said Ms. Walsh, who earns about $40,000 a year as a fund-raiser for Birthright Israel Foundation, a nonprofit organization. ?I felt like I looked at a thousand apartments.?

The downside is that her room is just 6 1/2 by 8 1/2 feet. Because there?s no closet, she keeps her clothes in an armoire in the living room.

?I could have lived at home, in a giant room with a closet,? Ms. Walsh said. ?But it?s so much fun to live in the city, to buy your own groceries. You make sacrifices to live here. If you want to be in Manhattan, it means a smaller apartment.?

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For Andrea Fisher, who is one of Ms. Walsh?s roommates and also grew up in Rye, it means an even tinier room, one with space for no more than a twin bed, a foot-square night table, a bookshelf and a laundry hamper. She has a small closet, but puts most of her clothes in the drawers under the bed, which she calls ?a lifesaver.? Her rent, because she has the smallest bedroom, is $700 a month.

?It is small,? admitted Ms. Fisher, who is 24 and works for the Artists Rights Society, a group that represents artists dealing with copyright issues. But the appeal of the neighborhood compensates for the tight quarters.

?Besides,? she said, ?you?re not looking to just hang out in your room.?

Ms. Fisher, who has outfitted her space with posters from art fairs and a rug she made when she worked for a textile designer, is completing work for a graduate degree at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Writing a thesis in a cubbyhole, she has discovered, can be a challenge.

?If you don?t have a desk,? she said, ?it?s not as conducive to working. There?s no room to work in the living room, so I work and eat at the kitchen table.

?But I?m so proud I can support myself, and have an apartment on the Lower East Side that I can afford,? she said. Again and again she returned to the appeal of living in this part of the city.


?The neighborhood is definitely the best part,? she said. ?There are tons of bars and restaurants, and the F train is right there, so it?s easy to get anywhere. Plus, as a girl, you never feel like you?re not safe. You can come home at 4 in the morning and the streets are filled with people.
Multimedia


Interactive Feature
20-Somethings Living the Small Life in New York Apartments
Tell Us Your Story


Your Worst Apartments
Too little space. Too many stairs. Sporadic heating. Tell us your story or send us a photo about a bad apartment you?ve lived in.
?We had a mouse,? she acknowledged. ?But if you live on the Lower East Side, you?ll always have a mouse.?

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Ms. Gumbel, the 28-year-old photographer, pays $1,200 a month for her one-bedroom apartment in a renovated brownstone in Clinton Hill.

?It?s a nice apartment,? said Ms. Gumbel, who works as an office manager at Meyer Davis Studio, an interior design firm. But her subway trains, the G and the C, are routinely rated as among the city?s worst, and her commute to her office in SoHo, ?which should be easy,? she said, takes 45 minutes. Still, she has no desire to leave New York.

?I studied fine arts,? said Ms. Gumbel, who graduated from Pratt Institute and has held many photo-related jobs. ?I?m here for the art scene.?

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Ben Craw, a friend of Ms. Gumbel?s, lives with two friends in a four-story walk-up on Lorimer Street in Williamsburg. Mr. Craw, who is also 28, earns about $40,000 a year as a video editor for The Huffington Post. He chose the smallest of the three bedrooms, just 6 by 8 feet, because at just $534 a month it was the cheapest.

?I have a bed, a desk wedged between the bed and the wall, a folding chair, a window with a great view of the skyline,? he said. ?That?s really all I need. I don?t have a lot of worldly possessions.?

For three young men with strong legs and simple needs, the apartment suffices. Mr. Craw uses his quarters mostly for sleeping and working on his laptop. And he can?t imagine being anyplace but the city.

?Ever since I was a little kid,? said Mr. Craw, who grew up in Fairfield County in Connecticut, ?I always loved New York. I couldn?t wait to get out of my house. In terms of the jobs I wanted, the social life I wanted, I didn?t care where I lived as long as it was in the city. I wasn?t sure what I wanted to do, but I knew that whatever it was, it would be most possible here.?