Sunday, March 4, 2007

The Truck Stops Here

The Daily News reports that some couple is living in a truck in Brooklyn because they don't want to pay Manhattan rent:

Home Sweet Truck

Photo from the Daily News

And then there are the responses to an essay by a Williamsburg hipster that was printed in the NY Times last week.

Priced Out, Leaving Town

To the Editor:

Re “Escape From New York,” by Abigail A. Frankfurt (New York Observed, Feb. 25):

With the sale of Stuyvesant Town, the possible sale of Starrett City and the looming Atlantic Yards development, why should we be so concerned with a struggling writer who can no longer afford her hip studio apartment? What about middle-class families who can no longer afford their not-so-hip apartments? Hearing from those “native New Yorkers” would be more worthy of column space in The Times.

In the meantime, if Ms. Frankfurt ever decides to return, I suggest she find some roommates. That’s how many of us entry-level workers get along without a trust fund.

Sheena K. Fallon
Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn



To the Editor:

Abigail A. Frankfurt seems less a victim of the gentrification of Williamsburg than a victim of her own overweening sense of entitlement.

By her own admission, she won’t even consider Queens, Staten Island or the Bronx (and I assume Jersey City isn’t even on her radar), nor will she accept a roommate.

One undeniable benefit of New York’s long-standing housing shortage is that it relentlessly drives out prima donnas, while leaving New York to those of us who are willing to make sacrifices to live here.

New York is a series of tests that all of us constantly take and either pass or fail. I suspect Ms. Frankfurt will find her new Midwestern home suits her well.

Alan Miles
Chelsea

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Crying like a baby because a primma donna can't afford to live in Manhattan (the land of OZ) and shuns the outer boroughs gets no sympathy from me!

Move to Kansas for all I care. Say hello to Dorothy!

There are those who are finding it hard enough to live in Queens , or the other 4 boroughs, these days!

Anonymous said...

I've been priced out of my native Brooklyn for cripes sakes. Tough luck on her. But she has a point. A huge chunk of the music community doesn't even consider NYC an option anymore. That's why Atlanta is thriving and even Phillie is coming back. Check the apartment rents in those 2 places.

These poseurs taking over, a bunch of skinny guys carrying guitars with trust funds whose musicianship sucks the big one, that's what's going to be left here.

If I had only kept my place in Manhattan Plaza, although they've tried to give the musicians there the boot several times as well.

Anonymous said...

NYC used to be the entertainment capitol of the world! Is it anymore?

True CREATIVITY in all the arts is on the skids because they people that create it are being evicted from our city by rent gouging landlords!

NYC has become an ornamental stage set. Remember those false front mining town buildings...putting on aires...in old western movies?

We've got instead a mediocre Disney World of pseudo overpriced extravaganzas.....be it on Broadway or some of the overated galleries and night spots.

This is where the "touristas" get bilked.

Where does the NEW ART get nurtured? That's why you see so many revival shows on Broadway. Re-hash that old material (which I happen to like) but where's the REAL GREAT new stuff?


As the poster said...coming out of other cities! You should see the arts area of....yes....Pittsburgh!

WOW!!!!!!!!

That's where I'd move if I were 20 years old. There's no investment in your art as a-work-a- day drone here anymore! But that's what Mayor Mike wants.....a city of the rich.

Well, who'se gonna be left to wipe all those wealty asses......or entertain them?

Anonymous said...

Maybe I can buy a parking space in Manhattan and pitch a tent with a porta-potty on it as a home.

Anonymous said...

Good try, Mazeartist. They'll probably evict you because the zoning or C of O doesn't permit this use.

Now if you were a developer they'd make allowances for anything!

I'm for rezoning that would permit a trailer park next to Socrates Park for artists. What do you think?