Co-op of the Day: 27 South Portland Avenue, #3

is there a washer and dryer in this brownstone building that i will be able to utilize along with my $325,000 room?

i am sorry there is absolutely no confidence whatsoever in saying “i own a room”…lie to yourselves if you must but who buys a room???

Also, there is a closet, which is a normal-sized closet for one person! The floor is original, and the kitchen and bath were renovated in 2005 before I bought it. Not sure why bathroom is not shown, but it’s modern, tasteful, and yes, quite petite.

The bars will come off but only if the buyer wants them to 🙂

Sorry to shill, just offering all relevant information. My comments will hereby be restricted to Wburg condo trash-talking.

Robert, I was pointing out that I’m not unfamiliar with living in what I now clearly understand IS too much space and why I am finding myself really appreciating the studios that are being shown the last couple of days. Of course, I cannot be sure, but at this point, if I end up living in a small apartment, I don’t think I would really dream about going back to something bigger.

When I was “younger”, well in my twenties (i.e. getting to be a l-o-n-g time ago…ugh), I lived in Europe and lived in big and small places. I guess Europe has gotten very expensive since then so things have probably changed a great deal in terms of rents, etc.

Anyway, I somehow managed to return to the States with a couple of big valises (more or less)…ah to be young and not have all the baggage that one accumulates! When I came back, I first moved into a small one-bedroom with what we used to all an “efficiency kitchen” on Broadway. It was a small but clean efficiency apartment with a small bedroom that was so small (and faced the street) that I actually used the living room as the bedroom so the kitchen/entryway was seen from the bed. I had some furniture from my mother and a girlfriend gave me a daybed…I didn’t have much. We didn’t have Ikea then (thank God!) but I somehow just accumulated things along the way and now it’s in crisis mode.

I didn’t particular “collect” things…stuff collected me! But the husband IS a collector (for his work especially) so every time I suggest we scale way down he wags his head in disbelief (probably because he doesn’t think I can do it but also because he has a ton of stuff: the books, artwork, ceramics, his own work, materials, equipment, work tables, tools, stuff, stuff, stuff!)

Hhh…it’s scary thinking about it. I have a feeling we’ll never rid ourselves of this. Some museums (if we don’t have a huge cataclysm and there are still museums down the road) will be happy enough to take some of it off our hands, just some… but at some point if he can no longer handle making his art, someone will have to figure out what to do with all the stuff. I hope we can find a school that might take things. If I’m alive, we’ll have to make a decision together…who knows…

Sure we generally need cloth for clothing, shelter and food, but why on earth we have this compulsion to both accumulate and also to create more objects will probably never be fully explained to my satisfaction. Ah, humans…

Mopar, there are some very dreary, poorly maintain studios in the Village. In fact, all over NYC there are dreadful places.

I’m not sure why everyone seems rather clueless about SROs. Look Single Room Occupancy rooms are just that: a room. Bathroom on the floor on down on the next floor shared with others. A musician friend of mine lived in an SRO on the Upper Westside. He passed away years ago. Great jazz musician. As I remember he was supposedly not even allowed to cook in his SRO room. Everyone in the building had a hotplate but I think it wasn’t supposedly allowed.

Kids, years ago, life in NYC was a little different. There was relatively cheap food, diners, joints, a lot of working people (men *and* woman too) mostly single, would live as a boarder or in an SRO and not have access to a kitchen. This was normal. You managed. You had meals out and cold food in. I guess today, someone could very well do the same but I don’t think there are many places without kitchens…and the cost of food seems higher to me…and rent is higher…

You used to be able to make a lower-end wage and save something and still be decently turned out on the street, and have a little pocket money. I knew many young men years ago who lived in a boarding house situation, had a job, ate out (and drank) and managed fine, and saved money. From what I can tell now, only people at a certain salary level can save at all. Even at what seems like a decent salary, the take home pay after taxes, health insurance pay-ins, etc. leaves most people just enough for the rent and the bare essentials. Am I wrong? It seems the Great Room/McMansion Era has helped ruin people’s expectations as well so they are not willing to live in a studio like the one featured today.

It may not be huge but it could be very lovely. The kitchen looks like a recent renovation. The countertop could stand to be sanded. Maybe a small fridge can replace the big one so the counter to can have a small peninsula. The wall where there was once were closets (the area to the left of the windows) is set back and has a different flooring pattern. I would suggest the next person think about a wall of built-ins to greatly increase the storage space. There is all sorts of new furniture, I think mostly coming out of Europe, particularly Italy, that can conceal beds. Basically, there are these new Murphy bed types that are more sophisticated and let you have shelving on one side. The whole shelving unit pivots, a bed on the other side is like Murphy bed. Brilliant. I would put a desk in the arch on the back wall and keep an eye out for fully mirrored furniture (obviously the nicer stuff, not simple Ikea wardrobes with mirrors on the front).

It’s too bad the studio couldn’t be completely, tastefully decorated and “staged” for the photos/open house…I guess it doesn’t “pay” for an apartment this size but I’m sure it would probably help sell it.