I've called my former management company probably fifteen times now about getting my security deposit returned. It's about $1800, and though I lived with my boyfriend and another roommate, it's almost all my money. For awhile it was "we'll send it to you in two months." Then it was three months. Then it was, "Oh, they send it in the third month." So it's four months later, and I called back, and I'm told that they have no record that I paid my last month's rent, so the deposit was applied to that, and oh, I owe them $71 (for what, they do not say). I didn't pay my last month's rent because I paid first and last when I moved in. This management company bought the building while I lived there, and they claim to have no records of my initial transaction. But I bet you money ($1800, in fact) that they'd have harassed me long before this if they really thought I hadn't paid a month of rent that was due.
I'm in tears. I don't know what to do. It's a lot of money. And the brusque rep says she understands that, but without proof I paid first and last two and a half years ago, there's no way for me to get my money back. And then she hangs up on me.
What are my options here? Small claims court? Would it help to sic my dad, who is both a lawyer and extremely tenacious, on them? Do I just slink away and let them keep all this money? How can I do that?
Thursday, October 02, 2008
I really don't know what to do.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Penthouse Living
I spent Sunday afternoon visiting open houses with my mom. My parents are coming up on a big change in their lives: my dad's retiring, my sister graduates from college and embarks on her life as an individual in May--especially with the recent Wall Street tremors, my parents are doing a lot of thinking about how they want to spend the next phase of their lives. They're thinking seriously about selling their loft and downsizing, or selling their loft and moving upstate, or renovating their loft, or selling their loft and moving to Santa Fe or Maine or--you get the idea. Their lives are up in the air. They're in quite a good financial position, with substantial savings, a valuable apartment, and my dad's pension, but they don't have unlimited funds--still, they're putting their legal documents in order (including updating their wills) and working with a financial adviser to plan their future.
This involves a lot of house-hunting. My parents love house-hunting. My mother is one of a relatively small number of people who genuinely like renovating fixer-uppers, and she's got a great eye for interior design, and my father has the kind of vivid imagination that begins sketching a life around each new property, so they really get into it. This weekend, they've begun thinking about Brooklyn--my dad grew up in Brooklyn (Brighton Beach), and is reluctant to move back to that side of the river, but a walk around Park Slope proved persuasive. I can envision them living so happily in Park Slope or Prospect Heights--my dad sniffing around the Park Slope Food Co-Op for the ripest peaches, my mom visiting the big flea market on 7th, going to yoga classes & knitting group on Union, gardening on her roof. I want them to enjoy their time and their money; I want them to enjoy themselves and each other.
They really are looking to downsize, so I'm not sure why they decided to check out a penthouse on Eastern Parkway. Oh, wait, yes I am--it was the incredible view on the StreetEasy listing. My mom and dad made a list of places they were interested in, and my mom, K, and I went to see them yesterday. In person, the view was even better--mind-blowingly beautiful--the Manhattan skyline unfurled like your own personal backyard, a full vista of bridges and shining buildings--one missed the Trade Towers viscerally again, looking out there--and on the other side, Prospect Park rolled away like the world's biggest lawn. It was like being being on top of the Empire State Building, except...better, because you can see the whole Manhattan skyline.
The indoor space needs to be gutted, and the price tag is $995K just for the bones. As one might imagine, this is more than my parents were hoping to spend on their next home. Still, my mother insisted that my father would have to see it for himself. I doubt it's in the cards, but it was enormous fun for me to get to tour the place, and see that view, and all the while enjoy the vicarious thrill of hypothetically spending other people's money for them.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Lehman
Two friends of mine work at Lehman Brothers. They graduated from top schools with degrees in economics, and off into the world of finance they went. They're both good guys--one was very clear to me that he just wanted to stay a few years, put away as much money as he could, then go out on his own to start a graphic design firm before he turns 30. I hope he ended up putting that money away after all. The other was always great at math--he's affable, kind, and not that ambitious, and I think to him, a stable job he'd be good at that would pay him enough to live with his sweet girlfriend in Manhattan and take her to all the nice restaurants in town sounded like an awesome deal. I know so many people who went into finance right after college--they're consultants, and analysts, and personal wealth managers--they handled other people's money by the bucketful. They started when the profits of the subprime mortgage bonds were already flowing into the top financial firms, and the hedge funds, like an unstoppable river, like a force that always has been and always will be. Finance feels like a stable, sensible choice--until something like this happens. I imagine right now my two friends at Lehman are very anxious for their jobs and their futures. I'm sympathetic to their anxiety, even though they've had it really good the past couple of years and probably have solid and lucrative careers ahead of them regardless of this downturn. Still, I hope they come out of this okay.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Hipster Mortgage Night
Without actually confessing to being a hipster ('cause I'm not; want to make something of it? Me and my PBR will meet you outside), let me just say that I'm psyched to hear about Hipster Mortgage Night. There's an event in Williamsburg one week from today, and the organizers have cited an interest in "help[ing] the city's creative class house itself," which--yeah. Freelancers, artists, and creatives of all kinds could avoid being priced out of "our" neighborhoods if we could/would buy up the real estate. The organizers promise to "show you what current listings your money can buy."
I kind of know the answer to that question already ("A run-down studio in Backwater, Queens, if I'm lucky!"), but I'm considering going anyway. You could, too: the link above has details.
Monday, February 04, 2008
New York Magazine Chews Over the Recession
I generally disdain New York magazine exactly because it's such a craven sop to the hedge-fund trust-fund New York, but, perhaps because as an institution it is so obsessed with money, it treats money and class quite thoughtfully when it sets out to treat them explicitly instead of just laying out pages and pages of $400 v-neck sweaters.
This article is a particularly nice one, about the economic boom's effect on the character of the city. The thought is that perhaps the recession might bring back a bit of the New York we used to know.
This article comes at essentially the same subject in a more macro fashion--an economic & political analysis of what has happened in New York as the lid has blown off the top of the stock market, and then again what may happen as it corrects.
Both are worth reading (certainly for New Yorkers).
We're On the Move
So, it looks like K and I will be moving come June. We love our neighborhood (and indeed, our apartment), and the rent increase on our lease renewal packet was quite reasonable, but I think we're both in favor of finding a one-bedroom and bidding our roommate farewell.
I, naturally, look at this as an opportunity to lower our rent. We figure the very top of our range is $1,500/month ($750 each, a rent increase of about $130 over what we'd pay in our place next year), but after some time spent browsing Craigslist, I think we can find something for $1250 or below. We're going to start looking in our current neighborhood (East Harlem) and then expand our search to Central Harlem, Washington Heights/Inwood, Prospect Heights, Bushwick, and Bed/Stuy. We're looking for a one-bedroom with a good kitchen. Current dealbreakers include carpeting, walk-ups above four floors, the J/M/Z and G trains, and broker's fees. On the wishlist: hardwood floors, light, closeness to trains, a dishwasher, and renting directly from the owner.
Cheaper is better, not just because duh, but also because in the event that I move out to go to grad school far away, it would be great for K if he could keep the apartment (assuming he's making a little more money then than he is now).
We found our current apartment through a broker and while I was still on the West Coast, and many organizational and financial mistakes were made. Parceling out the security deposit and whatnot is going to be a bitch, but I'm fully prepared to pay a little "stupid tax" and move on with things. Because I was on the West Coast when K and our roommate found this apartment, I've never apartment-hunted in New York, and it's both an exciting challenge and a terrifying obstacle. We do have the benefit of some time, a free place to crash if the whole thing blows up in our faces (that would be my parents' place), and a high level of familiarity with the city, transportation, and neighborhoods we're interested in. So it's English Major And Her Boyfriend Versus the New York Rental Market. Let's see who comes out with fewer bruises.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Times Have Changed
I had dinner with my mom last night. She reported that she'd just been at a co-op board meeting where she'd futilely voted against a 20% maintenance hike and the imposition of a sales fee (1% of sales price to the co-op association). The sales fee has been instituted because a well-known cosmetics mogul bought a full floor about six months ago and is now selling it for more than a million dollars more than she paid for it. "The building has really changed," my mother said.
When I was a kid, my parents' neighborhood was down-at-the-heels, full of artists and Hispanic church communities. There was a gas station across the street, a firehouse, a mysterious utility building of some kind, an Irish pub on the corner, nothing bigger than fifteen stories for blocks and blocks.
Now high-rise condo buildings are popping up like towering glass-and-steel mushrooms. Every time I go over there, my parents' big windows have less and less of a view.
Before I left last night, my mother showed me pictures of a townhouse they're looking at, up by Inwood, a beautiful four-floor Beaux Arts building with a rental unit. They could get it for substantially less than the price at which their current place is appraising, and that seems ludicrous, somehow, but I don't doubt it's true.
When I left the apartment, the elevator went up instead of down. Someone on a higher floor had called it, and when the elevator door opened, it was on the cosmetics-mogul's floor. The elevator opened right into the apartment, as it does sometimes when people own the full floor and want to maximize space, and there was a guy standing there, in an atrium of dark wood and glass, wearing what was very obviously more than a thousand dollars worth of clothing.
And I wonder what all those people must think of my mother at the co-op board meeting, what they think of the fact that she's lived in her apartment for twenty-six years, was married there, raised children there (we used to roller-skate in the big hardwood living room), left the piping exposed, buys her clothes at Housing Works and Loehman's and Daffy's. I know she has a few friends in the building--the other apartment on my parents' floor is still occupied by the sweet, round little artist and her lanky neuroscientist husband and their spoiled-rotten cats, who've lived there as long as my parents have, and there is a nice young mother of two with whom I know my mother has coffee, but the building used to be full of families with children; there used to be trick-or-treating from floor to floor; people used to organize children's innings for us in the beer breaks in the stickball games sponsored by the Irish pub.
It used to be a nice family building. The sense of community has somehow evaporated as the asking prices have escalated, and I know that now my parents are trying to face the idea of selling the family home, the place where they were married and raised their children, where we've celebrated one bat mitzvah, two graduations, and any number of family Thanksgivings, everyone sitting around the big wood dining room table. It's definitely a sad thought, but when it comes right down to it, I don't blame them.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Night Falls in Midtown
So. I'm leaving the company holiday party. I have had a glass of wine and a free dinner. I am wearing a new dress, and newish boots that are beginning to hurt my feet even though I bought arch supports to wear in them on Sunday. I am wearing an old winter coat, but it's made of nice wool, and I wear a costume-jewelry brooch on it, and it doesn't look too shabby. At the party, I have been gossiping with my coworkers; there was a speech by the president of the company heralding the younger generation; I have giggled with my boss and danced to "Hey Ya" (not simultaneously).
One of the guys from the mailroom is tall and broad-shouldered, with a square jaw and lucid eyes and skin like caramel. When he moves, all power and grace, it is hard to imagine that everything in the world is not easy for him.
My closest work-friend is knocking back Brooklyn Lager, grinning a grin he knows is charming, putting his hand on the knee of a woman twenty years older than he is.
Another work-friend is worrying about her assistant, who is being skeeved on rather vigorously by some sort of sales guy. He is very short, also quite skeevy. The assistant does not seem to mind, but the work-friend is worried anyway. Anything could happen, she says. I do not think anything could happen.
I talk with some girls about whether or not we are wasting our youth, about what we have learned and where we will go next.
When I leave, I do it without saying too many goodbyes. I get my not-too-shabby coat from the coat check, and put it on, and go out through the shining hotel lobby, and I like the feeling of the cold in my damp hairline and I want a cigarette badly. I like to smoke cigarettes in this particular mood, which is open and quiet and thoughtful, and I like to smoke cigarettes while walking in pretty shoes. I do not have any cigarettes. So walking down Vanderbilt Avenue, I stop in front of a guy smoking outside a cheesy tourist-trap restaurant. I ask him for a cigarette. I do not have a quarter, or I would give it to him. He gives me the cigarette, and offers me a light. My hand rests on his leather-gloved one while he lights my cigarette off his. He has an accent of some kind. I thank him, wish him a good night, and keep going.
I am standing in front of Grand Central, finishing my cigarette. There is a man whose backpack is sliding down his back, the straps slipping down his arms. He is panhandling. He is doing a bad job of it. He is muttering and looking dejected. He asks me, almost unintelligibly, if I have any change. I do not have any, or I would give it to him. He apologizes, wishes me a happy holiday. I smoke my cigarette. The Public Safety officer walks by in his yellow vest. The man is easy to brush off; he's hunched and muttering; people do not even look at him. The Public Safety officer doesn't either. The people keep going by, all of them going somewhere.
I ask the man what he needs. He needs a ticket to Poughkeepsie. I tell him I will buy him one. We go inside. He asks me to tell them I'm his friend, if they ask—he says they told him he was committing a crime by asking for money inside the station. He says he's only got about a dollar. I think of how long he must have been muttering at passers-by, and how long was spent in the cold. He tells me his girlfriend kicked him out, that he can't call his family because they'd hang up on him. We fight all the time, he says. He has terrible teeth. He punches the buttons on the machine. Cash? If I had cash, I would have given it to him. Debit. He turns around while I enter my PIN. The ticket drops with a little click, the sound of light contact. He thanks me; we shake hands. He asks if I have a boyfriend. I say that I do. He goes to get the train to Poughkeepsie; I go to get the six train home.
When I pop up again aboveground, the cold is a little more biting, and a cab slows down, expecting me to flag him and say Take me away from this squalor. Take me to Eighty-First and Fifth! The handle on the outer door of my building is still missing. I take off my shoes as soon as I get inside.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
White Girl Shops For Groceries in Spanish Harlem
Two men are standing in front of the eggs in my local supermarket. They are talking about how expensive the eggs are. The eggs are, indeed, expensive. I always have this dilemma in front of the eggs in this supermarket: do I buy the cage-free ones, which cost a gazillion dollars, or do I buy the cage-full ones, which in addition to the inhumane treatment of chickens are also guilty of styrofoam packaging? I usually choose the cruel & non-biodegradable eggs. They are nearly two dollars cheaper.
I have in my basket: tuna (on sale: $3.99 for four cans of Bumblebee; I'm stocking up), fresh cranberries (no price visible, but I have a sudden craving for warm, fresh cranberry sauce, and a bag of cranberries can't be more than $2), a box of teabags (Celestial Seasonings, $.20 cheaper than Bigelow) and four cups of yogurt (we are sticking scrupulously to our meal plan this week, and it calls for yogurt).
"If they're like this here," one of the men says, "imagine what it must be like on 86th Street!"
"I've seen it at 86th Street," says the other man, "Unbelievable. But, you know, white people."
"Yeah, white people. White people don't check prices. They're just like, 'I'll have one of those, one of these, yeah, I like this...'"
I look over at them. I'm not sure if they catch me looking. I go and check out.
Monday, November 05, 2007
Honey and Vinegar
I woke up early this morning because K had an early meeting--it was nice having time to wake up slowly--I even got to check my email in bed!
My MetroCard expired on Saturday, so I had to get a new one before I could get on a train. I know the navigation sequence on those buttons like the back of my hand; I barely have to look. Get a new card. Unlimited. 30-day. Credit card. Swipe, ZIP code, enter...and nothing. The machine sat there, "processing payment," for like a minute and a half. I stood and looked at it. The guy next to me was having the same issue. We looked at each other. I watched someone on the third machine on my other side try to pay with a debit card, and watched the machine reject it. Cash seemed to be working just fine.
A train came and went.
I went to chat with the lady in the booth. Explained the situation, asked her if she could let me through. She threw me some attitude, but also made a valid point: the thing took cash, and she had rules to follow. I said I understood.
So, I'm standing at the bank of Metrocard machines, trying to stomach the idea of getting cash (thus making myself late and paying an ATM fee), when she calls me back over to the booth.
"Can you hear me?" she said. I nodded. "People don't usually come up to me all pleasant. Go through that gate."
Saturday, October 13, 2007
New York on the Cheap: The Crocodile Lounge
I spent two evenings this past week at the Crocodile Lounge. I never return to a bar that fast. And, okay, the fact that I left a bag of tupperwares there did have something to do with it, but not everything, because I didn't have to stay for two beers. But I did. Because seven bucks (including tip) buys you a beer and a personal pizza.
Oh, yes. That's right. With every beer, you get a ticket entitling you to one free personal pizza. Which isn't as bad as you would expect from a free pizza. In fact, it's quite tasty, especially if you eat it right out of the oven, when the pan burns your fingertips and the molten, gushy cheese scalds the roof of your mouth. Delicious. For seven dollars, you get dinner and beer!
Even better, go for Happy Hour (weekdays, 4-6), and get beer for $3, well cocktails for $4. Still with free pizza.
I wouldn't plug the great deal if it weren't such a great bar. It's laid-back and unpretentious and has Skee-Ball in the back room. And the music is great. And, at 14th between 1st & 2nd Avenues, it's close to the excellent and extremely free people-watching in Union Square. Which is how I wound up my Friday evening (well, that, a cigarette, a cute boy, and a $2.99 bag of Trader Joe's chocolate-covered pretzels). I recommend it.
Monday, August 13, 2007
New Yorkers Talk About Money
From Overheard in New York, a few choice snippets about money in its various facets, including:
--student loans
--inheritance
--pets
--budget gift ideas
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Public Transportation, I Hate You
So, apparently, the New York City public transit system is not equipped for...rain. Whatever, there was a lot of rain--in fact, there was a big old storm--but something weird happened--because you'd think they'd have these underground electrified tunnels waterproofed, as a colleague mentioned--and the whole MTA was broken this morning. I waited for the 6 train for (what felt like) a hundred million sweaty gross humid years. Then I gave up. Then I waited for the Lexington bus for awhile, and every one that came down the pike was packed to the gills. Hungry and pissed off and exhausted and late for work and still on my very own corner, I went to Dunkin' Donuts and bought a big iced latte and a muffin. Four bucks. Not too bad.
BUT. Two and a half hours (!!!!) of miserable bus-taking later, I get to work and realize that the egg salad sandwich on baguette I packed has spoiled in the heat and non-refrigeration, and now I am hungry and pissed and really not into spending $10 on a midtown lunch place sandwich, especially because I made such nice egg salad, with TJs organic mayonnaise and pieces of delicious new pickle.
MTA, you owe me a sandwich. Also, bite me.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
New York on the Cheap: Shakespeare in the Park
If there is one thing I know, it is how to live cheap in New York--especially in the summer, which, as it happens, is when most tourists visit New York. So we can call this frugal New York tourism, but if you're a native, don't be shy about picking something up (or about correcting me!).
So here's the first tip: Shakespeare in the Park!
The Public Theater puts up two plays a year at the Delacorte Theater (enter at 79th on the East Side or 81st on the West--the latter is easier), and tickets are free, with one caveat: you have to wait in line to get them. Tickets are distributed at 1 PM, but you need to be there way before that, so you'll spend a chunk of time sitting in line.
This one's pretty well-known by New Yorkers, but plenty of people don't know how it really needs to be done.
There's a very, very easy way of determining when you need to arrive to get tickets: go by at noon on a comparable day (i.e. a weekend if you want to go on a weekend, the day before if you want to go on a weekday) and ask people when they arrived. Do not ask the first person in line; he/she will almost always say something ridiculous like, "Well, I got here at three a.m. and waited on Central Park West until five when the park police wouldn't shoo me away..." No. Don't go there. Ask someone at a reasonable place in line, 50-200 people back (depending on how intent you are on good seats), and take their answer as your arrival time. (Last Sunday, a friend and K and I had to show up at ten to six--yes, A.M.!)
Pack food. There's a deli that will deliver to the line, but they're slow, inefficient, and, you know, not the cheapest option around. I'd recommend bringing a sandwich (or alternate actual meal item), some easily packable snacks that don't need to be super-cold, a thermos of iced coffee (or whatever you prefer), and a bottle of water (freeze it overnight for a combination cold drink/ice pack). Even for those of you who don't have home refrigerators in New York, stocking up at a grocery store will prove cheaper and more convenient than ordering.
Also bring: sunscreen, sunglasses, a blanket (a cushion to sit on would be nice, too--you don't usually get the grassiest of spots), and entertainment (a book works, but a board game is even better).
At nine or ten, Delacorte employees will tell you to go home if you have no chance of getting tickets, but if you time your arrival properly, this shouldn't be an issue. Instead, they'll tell you that your chances are good, that you can't leave the line (hence the importance of the packing!), and that you can request two tickets for every one person on line.
You get your free tickets, you go home to nap, and you return at 7:30 for an 8:00 show.
The last performance of Romeo and Juliet was Sunday (and I'm so glad I caught it). A Midsummer Night's Dream runs August 7 to September 9, and I encourage you to go. It's a fun, frugal, and characteristically New York way to spend a day.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
The Complexities of Anti-Consumerism
I picked up some groceries at (New York's only) Trader Joe's last night and took them home on the subway. I was sitting next to a pretty young woman, probably no older than I am, with a beautiful little daughter who was probably three or so. You know how you can tell that some kids are going to grow up to be stunning? You could tell with this girl.
The mother was well-dressed, in boots, a nice pair of jeans, and a blazer. Her bag was a so-so Vuitton knockoff--the material was shiny in that Canal-Street kind of way. Her hair was chemically processed--it looked to me like Japanese straightening, not corner-beauty-shop lye straightening. Her little girl was dressed well, too, and tastefully--not in that miniature-adult way that children, especially girls, sometimes are--in pink sneakers, jeans, and a quilted coat. The daughter was clearly very bright: she was engaged and articulate throughout the subway ride in a way that made me associate her with the kids who win the leadership scholarships from the foundation at which I tutor.
The mother was holding a little pink bag on her lap. The plastic that had held the tag was still attached to the zipper. She asked her daughter, "Do you like the new bookbag I got you?" The girl was looking at something and didn't respond. The mother asked again, nudging her, and the girl looked up, flashed a huge smile, and kissed her mother on the cheek. "Yes, Mommy!"
Consumerism issues, an observer might say. The mother is clearly trying to maintain an image of having more money than she does (i.e. the knockoff bag) and trying to win her daughter's affection with material objects.
But.
Consider that this is a young black single mother (she was telling her daughter, quietly, that they were going "to Daddy's house," and when she counted the stops for her daughter, it was clear that the destination was pretty deep in the Bronx). Consider the stereotypes with which she has to contend. Consider what she feels when people look at her and her beautiful, precocious child and glaze over in that "God, not another young black single mother" way that she has learned to recognize. It differentiates her, this image that costs money to project. The money that she spends on clothing and on her daughter's sneakers, on aspirational handbags, buys her some peace on the subway, buys her, maybe, freedom from the weight of each judgment levied by the glances of strangers, conscious or otherwise.
It seemed clear to me, sitting next to her, that this woman understood in an instinctive way the class-coding of consumer goods, that by sheer force of will and strategic spending she planned to change her social identity and her daughter's, that she was determined that no one would ever look at her or at her daughter and sneer. Her meticulousness in other ways--the carefully-packed snacks, the stop-counting--seemed to bear this out.
People do sneer. People really do look at other people and think, "Oh no, not another one," and imagine squalid apartments and corner drug deals and absent fathers. We all do it. I am doing it here, in some way. I'm not sure it matters whether the tone of our imaginings is compassionate or revolted. It is terrifying to know that other people can claim your life in this way, that they feel entitled to have opinions about you. The weight of these collective imaginings really does affect the people on whose shoulders it presses down. There are consequences, real ones.
I can imagine this woman's efforts paying off. I can imagine her spending everything she has to keep her daughter in nice clothes and green vegetables. I can imagine her daughter getting a scholarship to a good college, getting a lucrative job, paying for her mother's retirement. There is some way in which we fulfill the prophecies of our sneakers and mittens and freezers. Is it a coincidence that this determined, meticulous, anxious woman has a smart, beautiful daughter whose shining future visibly unfurls before her?
I don't think it can be. I think the bill of goods this woman has purchased includes not only the pink sneakers and bookbag but a set of behaviors that is rewarded. This is how class functions. You can give a child a different class identity than yours--I've seen it done, for many of the first-generation American kids with whom I went to high school. They went off to Yale and Amherst and Dartmouth and then into the Peace Corps and finance firms and law school, and they do take for granted what they've been given, in the way that we all do, the way in which it's what they've always known and had, and it is hard to understand on a visceral level what giving it meant to their parents. It is hard for me to understand what giving me Keds and riding lessons and an American Girl doll and dance classes and a private education and trips to Europe means to my father. There is a gulf there, much as, perhaps, there will be between the mother and daughter on the train when the daughter grows up and does not understand, really, what it is to be afraid of the way people look at her.
So I don't think we can really tell this woman, with authority, that she shouldn't be spending so much money on clothes, or toys, or her hair. I think we have to remember that things have meaning--real meaning, a meaning that changes people and lives and, ultimately, the world. At the very least, I think we need to recognize on a visceral level that it takes a strength of character that I cannot even comprehend to stare back at the staring strangers and know that you are still a person, your own, unclaimable, regardless of what they have thought about your hair and your clothes and your parenting--about you--that it is not weakness to want them to stop so much as it is unfathomable strength to bear everything they unknowingly communicate.
I think this deserves more consideration than the phrase "keeping up with the Joneses" can provide, much as the woman on the train deserves more consideration than the dismissiveness of a statistical, appraising glance.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Bright Lights, Big City, Ridiculous Real Estate Market
Some months ago, doing jury duty, I ran into the mother of some old friends, who now sells apartments in Manhattan. She urged me to buy young, and assured me there were still apartments "under $400,000." On my way home last night, I stopped at a real estate storefront and looked at the photos of beautiful apartments—none of which had price tags under 340K, and that was for a teeny studio. Granted, that was a high-end sort of place, but nevertheless—real estate prices in New York are astronomical. How can anyone under 30 afford to buy at those kinds of prices? I would like to buy young, and it's not like I want to buy a SoHo loft or anything, but how does one even begin to come up with a down payment of that size making less than, say, 100K?
I know we're a city of renters—but is it actually impossible to buy in New York before you've really, truly "made it"?
(I wonder, also, how much this contributes to gentrification—it's easier to push out a community of renters than one of owners, and the pushed-out people benefit less.)
