Should Landlord Subsidize Tenants' Good Life?
A familiar story with the same violins playing in the background: A group of pioneering artists with under-market rents fighting the evil landlord who wants to maximize the profitability of his property. In this case, it’s a particularly colorful gang of circus performers and nonprofit publishers, many of whom will have to leave New York…
A familiar story with the same violins playing in the background: A group of pioneering artists with under-market rents fighting the evil landlord who wants to maximize the profitability of his property. In this case, it’s a particularly colorful gang of circus performers and nonprofit publishers, many of whom will have to leave New York if they lose the court battle over whether they are protected by rent stabilization laws. As big a bummer as it is for them (and arguably for the fabric of the neighborhood), we can’t see why the landlord should have to subsidize these folks any longer. No one forced them to move here twenty years ago–they did so because it was the best deal they could find at the time. It’ll be interesting to see what the judge says.
The Good Life on South 11th Street [NY Times] GMAP P*Shark
Photo by justiNYC
I bought a brownstone in Clinton Hill after decades of renting in low-rent neighborhoods, getting priced out and repeating the cycle. Now I’m like a broken record to my neighbors and friends to find ways to buy rather than rent, because no matter how saintly their landlord may seem, it only takes a retirement, a medical emergency or a kid to put through school to make landlords ask themselves why they’re subsidizing other people’s ability to live in 2006 New York as if it was 1972. Capitalism’s a bitch, but it’s clearly not going away any time soon, and rents have been shooting up all over the city for a lot of years, so the shock and surprise of long-term low rent tenants is a little hard to sympathize with.
making art in NYC is not easy and never was. if you want to live for free and not have to work a job so you can make unlimited art then move to Detroit. meanwhile, there are plenty of artists who are up to the challenge here in New York. the smartest ones got a clue and bought their buildings when the neighborhood was cheap.
Save $1 for every volume and you have $60K. Could have been a down payment on an apartment, even in today’s market.
>Artists are special people. Without them >we wouldn’t have Broadway, Museums, Opera >Houses, great restaurants…culture.
>They need to be protected.
I can entertain myself very well, thank you.
Artists deserve the same protections that everyone else enjoys. They don’t deserve any special protections over and above that. If YOU want to support them, you can always become some artist’s patron.
Lets be real, anyone with any sense could read the writing on the wall, in this case 60,000 volumes worth, and prepared themselves for the day when the building was sold. As someone who lived through the great squatter daze of Alphabet city, any really smart “artist” was able to. (by any means necessary) end up owning their building in some cases for as little as a dollar. I was not in the mood to settle down. When those of us left the East Village, we squatted Dumbo. Yea, sure, the Landlords invited us in with the hopes of increasing the property’s value, but we lived out of our suitcase and you couldn’t beat free rent for two years, not to mention some great parties. I lived three years in Columbia. SC in an old cotton mill house and the same thing happened there, except they came with bulldozers and leveled the place. Don’t get symbiotic confused with parasitic. Most parasites are opportunistic and seek a living arrangement that does no serious harm to it’s host while passing through. Now that the old landlord has sold, the new owners have gotten all their shots, and most likely will pass the old tenants with the next big bowel movement. I thought that Artists were supposed to be able to see the world more keenly than the rest of us. To recognize patterns in the world others are blind to. Instead we have a bunch of hot house flowers who exist through grants and the kindness of strangers. BROADWAY, DON’T EVEN GO THERE!
“Artists are special people. Without them we wouldn’t have Broadway, Museums, Opera Houses, great restaurants…culture.
They need to be protected.”
Without developers and investors you wouldnt have Broadway, Museums, Opera Houses either. – not to mention the Govt subsidies all these art forms enjoy.
And besides most of the so called pioneering ‘artists’ are a bunch of disaffected, directionless 20 somethings who have as much artistic talent as a Jay Leno monologue and subsidize there poverty with checks from mom.
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linusvanpelt,
There’s no doubt that the housing courts are unfairly skewed against nyc landlords. I won’t argue that. But I disagree with you that landlords are the only ones that bears the burden. Society does help to subsidize art: it’s called affordable housing. You no doubt have read this article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/16/nyregion/16housing.html
The sad fact is that many of these ‘affordable’ units are tucked away in the rear or ground floors of luxury developments…without sunlight or views.
Artists are a pioneering bunch. I’m just surprised that none of them saw this coming and tried to do something about it beforehand. This is a bitter lesson that I hope the art community can learn from…buy it first and then beautify it.
ARtists need space to build and work. That is their office.