Lots of Love for the Schermerhorn House
The Schermerhorn is not your average affordable housing project, as The Times makes abundantly clear in its profile this weekend. (As we put it a couple of weeks ago, “This place is about as sexy as supportive housing gets.”) Stand-out amenities include a gym with floor-to-ceiling windows and a ground-floor performance space. (The Brooklyn Ballet…
The Schermerhorn is not your average affordable housing project, as The Times makes abundantly clear in its profile this weekend. (As we put it a couple of weeks ago, “This place is about as sexy as supportive housing gets.”) Stand-out amenities include a gym with floor-to-ceiling windows and a ground-floor performance space. (The Brooklyn Ballet will be the anchor tenant.) Designed by Polshek Partnership Architects, the 217-unit building will end up being split fairly evenly between arts-related professionals who don’t make a lot of dough and those who qualify for supportive housing, typically the formerly homeless and others in need of help. The interior photo in The Times story is pretty darn slick for this type of thing, seeming to confirm our suspicions that lack of creativity and resourcefulness is usually more to blame than small budgets when ugly new buildings are put up.
New Homes for a Varied Cast [NY Times]
Schermerhorn House 1/3-Rented [Brownstoner]
Development Watch: Schermerhorn House Nears Completion [Brownstoner]
Development Watch: Schermerhorn House Gets Its Skin [Brownstoner] GMAP
Development Watch: 160 Schermerhorn Tops Out [Brownstoner] P*Shark
Development Watch: Schermerhorn House Rising [Brownstoner] DOB
Some More 411 on the “Schermerhorn House” [Brownstoner]
Rob why don’t you research it?
You are complaining yet asking for others to do the work yourself. :/
http://www.actorsfund.org/services/Housing/Schermerhorn_House/index_html
I think it’s a great idea to peg some more affordable housing to creative professionals! Some years ago a friend who had recently graduated from the sculpture department at Berkley was delighted to find publically subsidized housing and studio space in Oakland. ALthough she also had a job, were it not for the subsidy she would never have been able to afford both an apartment and a work studio. She’s now working in both sculpture and landscape design.
Not all artisits have family resources to fall back on. As things have gotten more and more expensive, NYC has fewer and fewer artists. This is very good thing since existing subsidized housing for creatives – Westbeth, other aprtments in the theater district, seldom become available.
hells yeah im envious! i want to live in that building too! lol. i still think it’s massively unfair. i think it’s great for the homeless and people who are TRULY down on their luck but someone who makes 20k-30k in the arts can just go live in bushwick with some roommates like all the other artists do.
*rob*
I fear for you, rob. They’re new and clean and nicely designed for compact living. But trust me- a one room studio is not luxury living. I know that for a fact.
Such petty envy is so unbecoming.
cry me a river crimson. real artists create stuff, they dont expect handouts which is exactly what this building is. you can sugar coat it all you want, but in the end this is nothing more than a stupid entitlement program for people who work in the arts. no one still has yet to answer why these “creative types” and i use that term loosely cant get roommates or second jobs like everyone else in the arts does.
*rob*
seems pretty “luxury” to me.
*rob*
Who cares Rob. If you want a city that does not subsidize their arts as much – move to another ‘heartland’ city. You moved to NYC, you should know by now that this city prides itself in sponsoring the arts – which I rather do than paying for GM or Chrysler or (bank name here).
rob- did you even read the Tines and the descriptions? These are NOT luxury studios.