So, you thought you’d look to live in happenin’ Harlem? And you hoped to find a pad for, say, ballpark of $1,300 or less?
If you’re lucky, you might land one of a handful of newly refurbished cubes that’s just big enough for a party of one, with a common washroom just down the hall.
Developers Matthew and Seth Weissman are lifting the curtain this weekend on their second set of five recently completed mini-apartments ranging from 150 to 450 square feet at 2299 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd, at W. 135th St.
It’s called a Single-Room Occupancy, or SRO - a vanishing segment of city real estate that was long associated with tenants who were down on their luck.
The Weissmans have identified an opportunity to market the minis to a new, up-and-coming niche even as housing advocates bemoan the loss of affordable options for the lowest-income residents.
Two of the building’s four residential floors are occupied by tenants with rent-stabilized leases with rents of $350 to $600 per month, but the landlords are asking $1,200 to $1,550 for the renovated units.
They’ve sunk more than $500,000 into facelifts at the building, which they bought for $1.4 million in 2013.
But not everyone supports the brothers’ rare move to preserve the building’s 20 tiny SRO units, which are grouped five to a floor and share 2 1/2 bathrooms.
Housing advocates have long bemoaned the loss of SROs, which have declined from 200,000 units in the 1950s to as few as 15,000, according to a 2014 report published in the CUNY Law Review.
The authors acknowledged the relative affordability of refurbished minis but said they did nothing to stanch the rise in homelessness that has long been correlated to the decline of SROs.
20 comments:
Since the 1997 gutting of Rent Stabilization well over 300,000 truly affordable apartments have been lost to "market rate".
As a result, the majority of New Yorkers are not paying at, or just over 50% of their pre-tax income on housing -mostly rent.
Thank Pataki-Bruno and all the other Albany shits for meddling in our city and inflicting this on us as payback for the real estate lobby's donations.
Yes, Pataki-Bruno. Silver had nothing to do with it.
At some point, doesn't a sense of dignity kick in for these people, even when they literally can't afford anything better? New York is not the only habitable place on earth.
There has been criticism of Jewish landlords who manipulated Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s. Do we detect a new breed of manipulators here?
Looks like Sidney Fields boarding house, the only thing missing is Mike the Cop and Mr. Bacciagalupep.
Got to drive out the troublesome lots around NYC to free up valuable real estate for hipsters to liberate.
Throughout NYC social engineering is being employed. Hollow out nabes by denying them the best municipal services and drive out African Americans, island folk, Latinos and other "troublesome" minorities and replace them with hipsters, yuppies...those who will gentrify and raise rents for greedy landlords.
Weren't these once called "furnished rooms" when furniture was provided with the rental?
Who washes the tub after the ablution? Protocol please?
Shared bath?
PASS!!!!!
But NY has the best entitlements,
That's why no one leave's
the damage from the likes of pataki-bruno and continued with the cancerous dealings by cuomo-silver and the real estate board of NY is obviously too late to fix if these two mongrels are infiltrating this building with,let's say,original settlers still inhabiting the building.
anyone who rents these sro's are willfully stupid and scum.Will any of these new transplants ever say no to these lunatic rents and shitty spaces?
I don't think it's a coincidence that the hyper-gentrification in our state is no different than the extreme effects on our planet from climate change.Especially in the past few years.
it's hyperbole,but this is getting hectic.I think there's a reason the city is allowing all this hotel developement in remote areas in queens and brooklyn.It's the only places that these tenants are going to afford.
those weissmans fucking with that building are literally vultures.Ill will ambassadors of Generation Gentrification.Willfully oblivious of the needs of the people under them.And damn the daily news for promoting them.
The Wave is inexorable. Either own and reap the benefits, or rent and get pushed out. East New York is next.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/01/east-new-york-gentrification.html
The return of the S.R.O . . . yikes!
As more developers build one-bedroom, studio and single room apartments, it's becoming much harder to find affordable apartments for families. If you want to have more than one child, don't bother living in this city.
"Since the 1997 gutting of Rent Stabilization well over 300,000 truly affordable apartments have been lost to "market rate"."
Wrong! Keeping apartments stabilized and controlled keep tenants in those apartments and don't open them up for new tenants.
No one is going to pay big bucks to have to poop with SRO residents.
It continues to be a great deal if you are related by blood, marriage, or partnership to one of the lucky occupants of a rental in scope for that temporary emergency known as "World War II" on March 1, 1943.
Why anyone would assume the risks of being a landlord in NYC is beyond me.
In one way or another, we have had decades of rent control since 1945. It has worked to shield the current unit occupant, at the expense to those who are looking to move for work or for growing family size. The key metric is vacancy rate. Places with a 5%-7% residential vacancy rate have stable housing costs.
Back to the days of olde. Each flat will come with a chamber pot to be emptied into a common toilet in the hall. It sounds like a perfect solution for areas like Flushing where Orientals have been seen peeing and, occasionally, even pooping between cars.
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