Why One Long-Time New York Renter Bought a Home in Austin
For Renters Week, Vox Media cohort Chris Plante, a senior editor at The Verge, waxed introspective about his years as a New York City tenant—and why even the best things can't last forever.
[Photography by Andrea Calo.]
For the final half of my decade spent living in New York City, my wife and I shared a rental in the former West Village Police Precinct. Technically, we lived in the old holding cells. The unit was separated from the stone complex of the main building by a narrow four-foot-wide path, and the 500-square-foot layout featured a narrow living room and half-kitchen downstairs, a bedroom and bath upstairs, and a low-ceilinged loft above that. (We once thought we'd turn it into a reading nook. It quickly became storage.)
Cramped? Sure. But we had two floors, no neighbors above or below us, and a courtyard only accessible to four other neighboring apartments. The the other folks were living in what were once, when Teddy Roosevelt was Police Commissioner, the morgue and horse stables. Those neighbors, some of whom have lived in the building since its conversion over three decades ago, planted flowers, held courtyard get-togethers, and allowed their cats to roam free, keeping birds and bugs from taking over the open-air space. I never thought we would leave.
Renters Endure a Comically Bad Super To Live in a Better 'Hood
Curbed Horror Stories are firsthand reader reports about terrible New York City apartment experiences past and present. This week, in honor of Renters Week, we're having a rental horror story showdown across all Curbed sties, with the winner receiving a staycation. Have a terrible tale to share? It's not too late to submit. Up now: one renter recounts five long years in a crumbling tenement.
I had just graduated graduate school, and my husband and I were quickly being ushered out of school's family housing. Listening to my older sister for neighborhood recommendations (we were looking for budget-friendly places, so we were okay with neighborhoods that were considered to be "on the cusp" of being safe), we rented a newly renovated place on the border of Clinton Hill and Bed-Stuy. We viewed the apartment building several times before signing the lease, and we were aware that the building was just being rented out, so we'd be one of the few people in the building for the time being. Little did we know that meant we'd be the ONLY people in the building, and they failed to mention that the gas and hot water wouldn't be on for two months, which we didn't find out until the day we moved in! But we moved in, because where else were we going to go? and we didn't have the funds for another deposit. Two days after moving in, my husband was held up at gunpoint in the entryway. We started looking at options to high tail it out of there immediately.
Artist Now Wants Millions More for Sprawling Brooklyn Home
Artist David Salle has a reputation for banking on up-and-coming neighborhoods. He did it with his 1980s Tribeca apartment, and wants to try his hand at it again. The prolific painter and printmaker has put his gigantic 10,500 plus-square-foot live/work house at 81 Hanson Place in Fort Greene on the market for $13 million. It's a hefty price tag·more than double the neighborhood's second most expensivelisting—that says Fort Greene isn't really up-and-coming any more than it is just up. This isn't Salle's first time trying to unload the combined townhouse and 1892 school building at the corner of South Portland Avenue and Hanson Place. He listed it for $10 million in October 2012, only to delist the property in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Rumor has it that Salle was contemplating a move to Red Hook, but reconsidered after the low-lying neighborhood emerged from the storm sopping wet and hurting. In 2012, Salle told the Daily News that he wanted more space and was also considering a move to Gowanus.
100,000 Affordable Rental Apartments Could Soon Be Lost
[Photo via Shutterstock.]
With New York's rent regulation laws up for renewal on June 15th, Mayor de Blasio is pushing for a number of changes including and end to vacancy decontrol, the process by which landlords can deregulate units once the rent reaches a certain amount (currently $2,500, raised from $2,000 the last time the laws were renewed in 2011). Putting an end to that practice is an important aspect of de Blasio's plan to create or preserve 200,000 units of affordable housing over 10 years, and a report from the Daily News shows that failing to do so could be disastrous. Apparently, more than 100,000 apartments could become deregulated in the coming months, including almost half of the 19,000 rent-regulated apartments in Tribeca and lower Manhattan. Meanwhile, de Blasio and Cuomo are quibbling over, well, a lot of things, but some kind of deal will need to be struck within the next two weeks—as Cuomo put it, letting the laws expire would lead to "mayhem and chaos."
Extell's City Point Rental Tower Could Be Brooklyn's Tallest
[City Point, May 2015. Photo by Field Condition.]
Having conquered the supertall field in Manhattan, Extell overlord Gary Barnett is turning his attention to Brooklyn, where his first project in the borough could be its tallest tower yet. It was reported last fall that Extell would be building the third and final piece of Downtown Brooklyn's City Point project, and now the Times brings a few more details of what that entails, now that Extell officially controls the site. Barnett said the tower, which will likely be rentals, could hold up to 500 apartments and rise 60 stories, meaning that what was once called a "totally imaginary" tower is not imaginary after all.
Bjarke Ingels Will Design Media Magnet 2 World Trade Center
[Left: Norman Foster's now-discarded design for 2 World Trade Center. Right: Four in-progress buildings by Bjarke Ingels, newly tapped as 2 World Trade's architect.]
Just because One World Observatory is officially open doesn't mean that the World Trade Center site will cease moving forward. The stegosaurus-spiked PATH station and transportation hub is set to open this year, and office tower 3 World Trade Center is back on the rise. On the northeast corner of the complex, though, lies an empty spot earmarked for 2 World Trade Center. That blank space inched closer to being a real-life 80+-story building building yesterday when, as rumored, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and 21st Century Fox actually signed a non-binding agreement with developer Larry Silverstein to take over a total of 1.3 million square feet of the 2.8 million-square-foot tower. (Leases at the media companies' current home on Sixth Avenue in Midtown run out in 2020.)
The anchor tenant deal could restart construction of the office building, stalled since 2008 and originally set to be designed by Norman Foster.
Explore the Wide World of NYC Vacation Rentals Beyond Airbnb
With all the trouble Airbnb has stirred up in New York City, including an "XXX Freak Fest", illegal short-term lets, and the wrath of the hotel industry and state government alike, you'd think it was the only short-term rental site on the internet. Well, that's just not the case. There's a slew of other short-term and vacation rental pages that are keeping a much lower profile while still providing the same service. So whether you're a vigilante who shuns the use of the controversial website, or are just looking for more options, check out this round-up of Airbnb alternatives.
Snohetta Tasked With Making Penn Station Area Less Awful
[Imagine a pedestrian plaza here.]
As Midtown West gets completely remade with Hudson Yards and Manhattan West, the area directly east around Penn Station continues to be a terrible mess. But developer Vornado, which controls some 9 million square feet of real estate near Penn Station, wants to change that. Crain's reports that Vornado tapped starchitect firm Snohetta to create a masterplan for the area that would provide an outline for a complete overhaul of buildings and street level spaces. Snohetta is responsible for turning Times Square into one massive public plaza, and they're going to bring that same sensibility to Penn Station to help with what a Vornado exec rightfully described as "the collision of humanity."
Stonewall Inn to Be Considered for Landmark Status
[Photo via Shutterstock]
The Stonewall Inn, considered to be the birthplace of the LGBT Rights movement in the United States due to the 1969 Stonewall riots, will finally be considered for individual landmarking by the Landmarks Preservation Commission on Tuesday, June 23. Though the Inn is protected due the fact that it sits in the Greenwich Village Historic District (pdf) it has somehow avoided individual landmark status until now, despite years of campaigning from the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation and many other groups. The Inn was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2000.
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Finding a Rent-Stabilized Apartment in NYC Isn't That Hard
[Photo via Shutterstock.]
There are two types of New York renters: those who live in rent-regulated apartments, and those that don't. More often than not, the latter group desperately wants to be part of the first (rents are kind ofhigh), but mystical rent-stabilized apartments are just impossible to find—or are they? In March, City Limits reported that there are 1 million rent-stabilized apartments, which accounts for about 47 percent of the city rental market. That's quite a lot, but what makes them elusive is the fact that once someone finds a rent-stabilized apartment, she is unlikely to leave. Many resources and news outletshave published tips for finding these less-expensive apartments, and now we've compiled an easy four-step—with shortcuts!—guide to help you join the rent-stabilized ranks.
Meet the Unintentional Stars of Craigslist Apartment Photos
Craigslist can be a good place to find a relatively cheap apartment, but it's the best place to look at the most hastily shot apartment listing photos anywhere on the internet. And the epitome of the hastily taken listing photo is the type where the photo-taker couldn't even wait for the current resident of the apartment to get out of the shot. Here now, a Renters Week semi-tradition: a roundup of Craigslist apartment photos with people in them.
New Yorkers Divulge Real-Life Notes From Their Neighbors
In the first episode of our new Renters Week video series, real-life tenants in Brooklyn and Manhattan recount the passive-aggressive, hilarious, and otherwise interesting notes received from roommates, neighbors, landlords, and more.
It's New York, after all, so everyone's living in close quarters. Inevitably, tenants have all kinds of wacky complaints, many of which result in ludicrous lawsuits. From neighborly love letters in Park Slopeto complaints about hearing a song on repeat in Harlem, the silly tales of these city dwellers are sure to entertain—but it can also put your own rental experiences into perspective. (And thank goodness for that little ounce of schadenfreude.)
22 Solutions for Small-Space Living With All Your Beloved Stuff
Are you one of Earth's 3 billion urban dwellers? Then there's a fair chance you're limited on space. And in case you don't subscribe to Marie Kondo's do-away-with-everything-that-doesn't-spark-joy manifesto, you probably have a lot of stuff squirreled away that you no longer have room for but aren't quite ready to part with. Enter the savior of the uncompromising hoarder: Space-saving furniture. We've compiled 21 lightweight, multifunctional, and adjustable items that will perform spatial alchemy on any apartment. Their beauty is in their ability to transform, contain, and enlarge. You can shop them all right now, they fit into every budget (ahem, Josef Albers Nesting Tables gladly rub shoulders with a $3 shelf from Flying Tiger), and they will give your Container Store-ridden apartment a much-needed update.
The Most Beautiful Rentals in New York City for Every Budget
[Guess how much this apartment is? Hint: not $50,000/month.]
The most expensive apartment in New York City costs $500,000/month. Lest that lead people to believe that renting in New York is only for gazillionaires, rest assured. It may take some StreetEasy scouring, but there are truly lovely apartments on the rental market right now that fit most price points. The 24 sweet specimens collected here range from an extremely affordable $1,500/month to, well, some palatial apartments circa $50,000 to ogle. There really is something for (almost) everyone.
Interior Renders Surface for Mysterious Midtown Condo Tower
Speculation over the fate of the Helmsley Park Lane Hotel on Central Park South has been fierce since it failed to win landmark status, with expensive condos being the obvious go-to guess for its future. Last week, a new batch of renderings by Handel Architects surfaced that depict a 1,210-foot-tall glassy tower at the site. While some maintain that the renderings don't depict the winning entry in a design competition for the Witkoff-owned property, YIMBY reports that they just might be, being that they're "plastered on the building's EB-5 materials" (which solicit investments from abroad).
Now, a new batch of downright stunning renderings for the same building's interiors have made their way to the public via New York YIMBY and AJSNY (h/t tipster). The renderings show the Helmley Park Lane as a shell for an uber-luxurious, soaring atrium with a living wall, and also include a majorly impressive view of a penthouse outdoor space with a gigantic private pool, and an indoor pool on a lower level. Although the images are exciting, no permits are on file for the tower and the developer remains hush about their plans, meaning these are likely not final.
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- Senior EditorHana Alberts
- Senior EditorJessica Dailey
- EditorJeremiah Budin
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- Weekend EditorRowley Amato
- PhotographyWill Femia
- PhotographyMax Touhey
- PublisherVox Media
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