What Would You Have Paid for a Brooklyn Rental 100 Years Ago?

Brooklyn housing costs have gone up and down. What would rental prices have been 100 years ago?

We perused The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from 1916 and gathered up a selection of rental ads in neighborhoods from Brooklyn Heights to Bensonhurst to see what Brooklynites would have gotten for their hard-earned early 20th century dollar.

The ads below are for recently constructed buildings with then-modern amenities. While the rents may sound enviably low, keep in mind the average American man probably would have been earning a salary of around $687 per year or, in 2015 dollars, $16,063.

Looking in Brooklyn Heights? Four rooms and a harbor view near the Brooklyn Heights Promenade could have been yours for $540 — that’s per year, not month. Would you have been able to afford it and groceries too? For some perspective according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics a pound of coffee would have set you back 30 cents, or $7.06 in 2015 dollars.

Much like today, your money would have gone just a bit further in Flatbush where a suite of four rooms was available with laundry in the cellar for $40 a month.

An apartment building in Bensonhurst also promising views, this time of Gravesend Bay, and featuring tiled baths and showers was asking $32 to $55, depending on the number of rooms. If you were looking to save even more money, the average tenement apartment was renting for about $10 to $12 per room per month in the early 20th century.

Looking for a prime location near Prospect Park? The Kings Court apartment offered “choice apartments” with new-fangled telephone service, and a short walk to the subway at rates from $900 to $1,000 per year.

Finally, the most expensive apartment advertised, set amidst the grand mansions Clinton Avenue, wanted $1,100 per year. The pricey “high-class” unit did come with six rooms, two baths and a hall boy.

Rents in New York City have gone up considerably since those days, as have salaries, even adjusted for inflation. The Clinton Avenue apartment would be about $23,900 in 2015 dollars, or almost $2,000 a month.

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