Friday, August 25, 2006

dictionary


monkˇish -adj.
1. Of, relating to, or characteristic of monks or monasticism.
2. Inclined to self-denial; ascetic.
3. Anyone who lives in NYC on an income less than ?

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7 Comments:

Blogger Barrett said...

As far as #3 is concerned: you don't want to know. ;-)


- Barrett

11:05  
Blogger emory said...

really Barrett- I want to know, the reason for the question mark. I don't know anyone in the City or the burroughs that lives comfortably. They live in hidey holes. How many dollars to be comfortable in the City? To have an apartment like any of the fictional folk on Seinfeld?

11:54  
Blogger emory said...

really Barrett- I want to know, the reason for the question mark. I don't know anyone in the City or the burroughs that lives comfortably. They live in hidey holes. How many dollars to be comfortable in the City? To have an apartment like any of the fictional folk on Seinfeld?

11:55  
Blogger Barrett said...

Bill,

Just yesterday I was hired by an IT company I know to help break up and pack the computer sysytems for the New York Landmarks Conservancy (the guys and gals who helped keep Grand Central Terminal from meeting the same fate as the original Penn Station) in preparation for their move from Chelsea to lower Manhattan. The building they're being moved out of ? itself a lovely old office building of landmark status along Fifth Avenue (just south of the Flatiron Building) ? is being converted to ? you guessed it ? big, megabuck condominiums. As I was standing in the middle of stacks of boxes with all sorts of office gear in them, I said to an assistant, "this office should make a nice 2-bedroom, maybe for $3-5 million. This is how money's made around here now"

Yes, there are far-cheaper digs around here, but you have to look harder for them (better off looking in Brooklyn, although real estate has gotten crazy here as well). I'm not too crazy about Chelsea's Glitter Gulch effect. Yes, it's friendlier (in a sense) than it was in the Wild West days of fifteen years ago or so, but besides the loud and expensive surface (along with a bunch of new and ugly high-rise "luxury" residences), I don't think the level of development is sustainable ? after the boom/bust cycles of the last 30 years, what I'm seeing now is all too familiar.

In short, you don't have to be a zillionaire to live here. But the livin' ain't terribly easy unless you are.


- Barrett

19:08  
Blogger Rosco said...

I agree. I graduated two years ago in Brooklyn, looked for a month for an apartment, and was shocked by how little $600 a month would buy. My friends who stayed are living in basements with no windows, sweating through the hot summers, and telling themselves they are surviving the city.

by the way Bill, I've been reading your blog for 6 or 7 months now and really enjoy it. Just moved to c-ville and enjoying all the green.

00:17  
Blogger Dave Beckerman said...

I'd estimate - and this is for Manhattan - less than 35K and you are in Monkville.

10:16  
Blogger Lightnin said...

Make that 45k, if you got your apartment 5 years ago. That means you can't afford to move out of that place, even though you may not have a lease or the rights of most Americans. No pets, no smoking, no yard, no noise. Construction is everywhere (destruction too).
As long as an individual somewhere is making more money, this seems acceptable.

13:28  

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