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Re: The Clarendon
Stuy Town/Peter Cooper Village were built by MetLife for vets after the war. It was actually a solid middle class enclave up until the housing bubble in the 2000s. It holds the record for most expensive housing sale ever (over $5 billion) and the new landlords figured they could jack the rents and kick all the rent stabilized tenants out. That didn't go over too well and eventually the greedy fuckers defaulted and lost the property, but not after renovating most of the properties to "luxury" standards (which, to be fair, was started by the previous landlords). I've been in them, they are incredibly nice and very very big by Manhattan standards. Problem is now all the frat boys go there and fit 3 bros in a 1 bedroom to save on rent. It isn't quite a post-college ghetto but it has certainly changed the area.
It really is a good case study on how to mess up a good thing. The problem with many of these "commie blocks" is that they really were, for the most part, much better than the original slums they were built to replace. Now obviously all housing isn't made equal, there were plenty of shitty public housing built too, but I've been in many places that people would consider "projects" that have large apartments and good amenities. It is mostly up to the landlord to decided who lives there. A slum lord could take the most swanky building on earth and turn it into a slum. Likewise a good landlord could buy up some rat traps and renovate them into the next hot neighborhood (gentrification).
Many of the middle income housing projects were built with good intentions and still have solid middle class tenets. Unfortunately they also look like Orwellian spaceships. My question is "where is the balance?" The agreement we have now is that developers can build luxury towers (where the big bucks are) if they provide "affordable" housing as well. Affordable is relative term which in certain areas is still very expensive.
Stuy Town/Peter Cooper Village were built by MetLife for vets after the war. It was actually a solid middle class enclave up until the housing bubble in the 2000s. It holds the record for most expensive housing sale ever (over $5 billion) and the new landlords figured they could jack the rents and kick all the rent stabilized tenants out. That didn't go over too well and eventually the greedy fuckers defaulted and lost the property, but not after renovating most of the properties to "luxury" standards (which, to be fair, was started by the previous landlords). I've been in them, they are incredibly nice and very very big by Manhattan standards. Problem is now all the frat boys go there and fit 3 bros in a 1 bedroom to save on rent. It isn't quite a post-college ghetto but it has certainly changed the area.
It really is a good case study on how to mess up a good thing. The problem with many of these "commie blocks" is that they really were, for the most part, much better than the original slums they were built to replace. Now obviously all housing isn't made equal, there were plenty of shitty public housing built too, but I've been in many places that people would consider "projects" that have large apartments and good amenities. It is mostly up to the landlord to decided who lives there. A slum lord could take the most swanky building on earth and turn it into a slum. Likewise a good landlord could buy up some rat traps and renovate them into the next hot neighborhood (gentrification).
Many of the middle income housing projects were built with good intentions and still have solid middle class tenets. Unfortunately they also look like Orwellian spaceships. My question is "where is the balance?" The agreement we have now is that developers can build luxury towers (where the big bucks are) if they provide "affordable" housing as well. Affordable is relative term which in certain areas is still very expensive.
