There are a lot of issues raised in this story, but what really catches me is the price of a studio apartment. Sure, it’s interesting to learn that lower Manhattan is refilling disproportionately with guys, but what kind of guys?
The Web site for the William Beaver House in Lower Manhattan, where the cheapest studio apartment now goes for $950,000, features a photograph of two women seductively nibbling corn on the cob. A biography of the building’s mythical mascot, a martini-toting beaver-about-town, reveals that he hangs out “where life is sleek and times are thrilling.”
The sales pitch for the 47-story building, going up at the corner of William and Beaver Streets across from Delmonico’s, is unabashedly capitalizing on, and perhaps perpetuating, a phenomenal population shift downtown. Men now outnumber women there by a ratio usually found in towns with all-male colleges, military bases and prisons, and in a few enclaves in Silicon Valley, with high concentrations of engineers and workers in other male-dominated fields.
Since 2000, men, mostly between ages 25 and 44, have accounted for more than three-fourths of the population increase in Lower Manhattan. As a result, according to a special census calculation, the sex ratio there increased to 126 men per 100 women in 2005, from 101 men per 100 women in 2000. In the rest of Manhattan, and in the city over all, there were only 90 men for every 100 women.
In poorer areas of the city, murder and incarceration have led to a higher ratio of women to men. But in the bombed out lower tip of Manhattan it is the opposite, owing to the male-dominated culture of Wall Street and the astronomical costs of real estate. The cheapest studio apartment in this new building is $950,000? That is just staggering. A studio apartment, for those that don’t know, is usually a no-bedroom apartment with a bathroom and perhaps a galley kitchen (if not a mere hotplate). It’s the kind of space a college student is willing to tolerate, not a high paid financial analyst or broker. Paying a million dollars to own a studio apartment is hard to justify…unless you really, really value being able to walk to work.
I’m not sure what to make of this development, but it doesn’t augur well. Things are getting dangerously out of whack. Something about this makes me feel like the market is headed for another big adjustment.
And you still have to tip the doorman.
Out of whack?! Insane might just be better.
Listen, Nothing is going to happen. Not a damn thing. If you are judging our situation right now then you have to include a myriad of things that you don’t want to touch. So, what is left for us are the small pieces of cake that our masters are willing to throw our way.
billjpa
$950,000 would build a lot of affordable housing for the poor and nearly homeless.
$950K for a studio? Even in the wild Silly Con Valley housing market, one can find a decent 2 or 3BR condo for about $600K, with pool and exercise room. That leaves over $300K to furnish the place (get a decent big screen TV) and stick some money in savings.
And I’ve got to get used to New York-speak; out here on the Left Coast, you don’t buy apartments, you rent them…
Wonder if the windows on those studios open, thinking about the Black Friday crash…
that’s what I was just thinking; this makes norcal real estate seem sane. But it’s not fair to compare the valley to downtown – a look at the Chron website shows a number of downtown SF condos over 1M. 2 or 3 bedrooms, not studios at least, but still, in the words of Dan Jenkins
I’ve come to the conclusion that what “affordable housing” means to most local governments (even in my county, where Democrats outnumber Republicans by over 2-1) essentially boils down to 5-8% of units in any new development get subsidized by the county, so they can be offered to limited income buyers (or renters). Developers are willing to make that concession, so the county will let them offer the other 92-95% of the units at whatever the market will bear.
And this may well be a building that used to be 100% rental (which is where most limited-income people have to live) but has now gone condo, forcing former residents to scramble to find another place to live they can still afford. Forget buying a place… just finding one you can RENT on one salary (or even worse, on your social security plus whatever little pension you have) is almost impossible sometimes. Sometimes even on two incomes.
Any form of rent control or even some stabilization of rent increases is apparently considered an obscenity by almost any politician who needs to have a reelection campaign financed by commercial real estate developers — so it’s not uncommon to see rent increases of 8-25% in a single year. It’s also not uncommon even in relatively liberal areas like around here to have “Landlord/Tenant” task forces and committees… comprised almost overwhelmingly of representatives and lawyers from real estate developers, builders and building management companies… with only token reprsentation from tenant groups.
And now foreclosures have doubled, as higher interest rates kick in and mortgage payments jump, but people’s income hasn’t. Where do people go when they lose the house to foreclosure? To rental housing, already in short supply in some places.
You could but about 3 house or 4 town homes in Kansas City for that much. That is crazy.
http://www2.reeceandnichols.com/searchpages/homesearch.asp?srch=sdname&searchvalue=northgate+vil
lage&age=new
I would not characterize Lower Manhattan as “bombed out.” What ass does this reporter’s head reside, because it’s certainly in a dark place somewhere. Again, more discredited reporting by the biggest failure of a newspaper in the country, the New York Times — writing and editing for it’s national audience.
By the way, don’t forget ladies, that a lot of those disporportionately distributed men in Lower Manhattan are GAY! GAY! Just take a look at Craig’s List men seeking men personals and see that the stats aren’t as bad as the discredited NYT says.
P.S. I live in Manhattan/NYC, does the reporter?
read the article, maybe.
when the crash comes 47 stories is plenty high enough to jump from.
The last time the distribution of wealth was this uneven in the United States, it was 1928.
Time for another capitalist crash ‘n burn.
Last time around, we (narrowly) averted fascism.
This time? I don’t think we’ll be so lucky.
Imagine how it will be when New Orleans becomes Disneyland on the Mississippi for real.
Rents are already outrageous in the Easy…already upwards from $1500-$3000 for even a two-bedroom.
Living in New York taught me one thing…don’t ever live in a city like this without money or a job that pays at least $45,000 a year.
$45K? Try $90K. $45K won’t get you anything but a roommate here in NYC.