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]
yeah but that still doesnt negate the fact that they can get roommates LIKE EVERYONE ELSE WHO CANT AFFORD THEIR OWN LXURY STUDIO WITH FLOOR TO CEILING WINDOWS AND A PRIVATE GYM. spare me, please.
*rob*
if you read the article in the times its more sepcific. Many of these people in the arts are freelancers who form the crews for theater productions on Broadway, or tv and film. If they leave NYC, you can kiss Broadway, and any other performance goodbye. And all the money they generate.
There are plenty of people who are “in the arts,” who, rather than thinking they are entitled to a handout or subsidy, have Monday to Friday jobs that pay the rent.
If you want to be a full-time artist and can’t afford the rent, move to Buffalo or Oklahoma City or a hundred other places, where a nice share will run you $300 a month, and you can probably rent studio space for a couple of bucks a square foot.
why can’t they just get roommates like everyone else has to do? why subsidize them just because they are “in the arts” to have a nice brand new spanking studio apartment with a gym? whatever, call it what it is, but i personally think it’s unfair.
*rob*
ccarol gardens – i was just about to add that same info from the Time. Thanks for clarifying. I know someone in the performing arts, admisntrative actually who earns shockingly little for his level and the time he puts in. So I also have to clarify that working in a not-for-profit arts organization will never make you rich. In fact you usually earn less than the average.
Note that these are small studios. These are not spacious apartments. Rent is pegged to income. I personally think that a building with this kind of mix of residents and an arts organization in the use ground floor space is a great idea. The Actors Fund is involved in this so you are going to have electricians and etc. in the mix. It is not a matter of “starving artists” or “trust fund artists”–many in the arts are actually somewhere in the middle. They are involved in some creative pursuit but usually have a “rent job” of some sort. If they are successful or rich they won’t be qualifying for these apartment. In this particular case, they will be people who DO work and make approx 20-30K per year. What’s the big deal about a gym, anyway? I have a feeling it is a bunch of exercise machines; not Equinox.
I’ve been in the arts for years and years too, rob. I can’t tell you the number of people I know who barely get by – and many of them do support themselves with other jobs. Still doesn’t make them rich. I would guess at the place you work you deal mostly with artists who have reached a certain level of recognition and therefore income. Those are the lucky ones. Believing your personal experience is the whole story is 100% wrong.
smudge- change that username to begrudge.
“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.”
This is definitely a decent step forward (architecturally) for affordable housing) but without knowing the cost per square foot I don’t know how it can it “confirm your suspicions”. It could be that this was built for $300/sqft. rather than $200/sqft (more typical). While not always the case, budget does influence the look of the building.
quote:
Most people in the arts are poor
absolutely 100 percent wrong on that. most people in the arts, from what i have seen for years and years, are that they are NOT poor and come from well to do families and most get family support financially. otherwise they wouldn’t be “artists” and get a job that pays more. seriously. i don’t fall for the “starving artist” mystique. this aint the 1920s. (tho it may be very shortly)
*rob*