No one held a gun to your head and forced you to read the article, nor did they force you to start an account here just to complain about the article which you didn’t have to read.
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That’s … hmm. It’s been 30 years since I moved to Chicago, but in 1993 I think my rent for an SRO at the north end of Lincoln Park was about $120 a week, so $480 a month. I know they’re different areas and all, but it just seems like rent would have gone up a lot more than that in the last few decades.
Of course this implies that the rent is based on a one year lease, whereas the SRO where I was living was week to week, or daily if you couldn’t afford the extravagance of paying a whole week at a time. Maybe that explains the price difference?
At any rate, tiny apartment it may be, I usually think of SROs as very short term residency, like what I was experiencing, instead of actual leased situations. She gets a stove, whereas I paid extra to rent a refrigerator and had a hot plate. I did have a small shower and toilet, however. Presumably she’s supplying her own furniture here? This one is several steps above where I was living!
(And yeah, please tell me the dog is visiting.)
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Now that’s not funny. There was a stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf. Alright? That tended to understate the hugeness of the object.
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Shit, I would have lived there when young and single. The lack of a real kitchen would have been hard for me, but with all the money you’d save and the amazing food choices in NYC, I would cope. Fortunately, when I lived there, my rent was about 33% lower than the average in my neighborhood, so I felt pretty fortunate. When I took on roommates, I was only paying $450/mo. (Ca. 2003)
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I don’t know, there are aspects of living like that that appeal to me. I found the building, and it’s right in the middle of Hell’s Kitchen, so at least she’s got Daredevil around. 
I will say that I’m surprised, and a little disappointed, that with all the tiny house/RV-related efficiency hacks floating around the internet, that she wasn’t using better solutions for space-saving.
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The thing that jumped out at me was, given people’s current “media consumption” habits, that a huge percentage of the downstairs wall was taken up by that big tv.
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At one point she says she uses a mattress pad when friends come over to stay on her couch and then returns it to the store once she’s done with it. So trashy!
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Well, when it’s a hipster tiny house on a huge piece of property that your parents and/or tech job paid for, then it’s cool and environmentally conscious.
When the same space is an SRO in a city, it’s considered some sort of commentary on everything that is wrong with the world.
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Maybe the ceiling height is only 3 feet.
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An electrical cord dangling dangerously close to the radiator…
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“PEOPLE SHOULDN’T HAVE TO LIVE LIKE THIS”
< SRO’s cease to exist >
< Former SRO tenants are now visibly homeless >
“PEOPLE SHOULDN’T HAVE TO LIVE LIKE THIS”
< Cops confiscate former tenants’ tents >
.
.
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You might find Living Downtown: The History of Residential Hotels in the United States by Paul Groth worth a read. because that is one of the points that he makes. When you saw off the lowest rung of the housing ladder, only a few people manage to make the climb up to the next rung, and most of the fall off into homelessness.
Living Downtown (cdlib.org)
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This podcast sticks with me. I’m sure a lot of the residents ended up as Groth describes.
I don’t think anyone should romanticise SROs, many of which were rightly also known as “flophouses” in the days when residential hotels were an alternative to rooming houses. However, they were one of the few affordable housing options left in cities at the turn of the 21st century and now (except for the illegal dormitories for undocumented immigrants) they’re gone.
I wouldn’t really call the place in this article an SRO, even if it technically is. It’s just another tiny NYC apartment being rented out at the city’s premium per-SQF market rate by a landlord who’s literally cutting corners.
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Believe me, if I’d used SI, the numbers would not be quite as neat (150" is exactly 3.81m, but 150’ is exactly 45.72m)
Yo, Like, Ya Know
Sympathy meter would move more for the “How small is where I live” videos from prisoners and such.
I had a friend who lived near 75th and Amsterdam in a building owned by her employer so she got a good deal on rent. I thought THAT was small. At least she had a window and her own bathroom.
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“I personally think that’s one of the reasons it’s so fun to live here. You can hop around between neighborhoods and try out new living situations all the time!”
/mocking stupid giggle
Uh huh. Where do the million$ to do that come from?
Housing costs are sooo obscenely bloated in far too much of the world. Teachers, students, tech workers, and too many others in California (and elsewhere, I’m sure!) live in their cars to avoid the exorbitant rents in the cities where they work and study. That is untenable.
No one should have to live like that, it’s true. No one should have to live in a closet, tent, nor car. We have more than enough food and available housing to provide for everyone, but capitalism won’t allow such humanity in its adherents, nor for those in whom it causes suffering.
Makes me furious. Shit needs to CHANGE. 
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It’s funny and strange for me to see this apartment presented as a sort of novelty no one should have to tolerate because I lived in an apartment EXACTLY like this in Seattle for about 6 months. They’re called “apodments” and they’re all over Seattle, there’s even one next to my current building. I also paid more than this lady did, about $750 a month. While that’s obviously too much for a unit like this, and so is $650, it was exactly what I needed and could afford at the moment. The only other alternative in Seattle is a studio for probably $1400+ or finding a room in a house/apartment with strangers. People act like units like these are some sort of backwards step but there should always be SOME single occupancy units available in a city and they should be cheap enough for a single person. I’ve heard that the city put a stop to construction of these sort of buildings and I don’t understand why. I hate landlords, real estate, corporate property management, private land ownership, and the whole market of housing in general, but I’m glad I was able to rent something stupid and small like this when I needed to.
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