Rufus your mind is obviously made up on this issue. But my experience has been different, I have friends that live at 100 Jane, The Victory and Tribeca Tower with no complaints. I lived in a building in Fort Greene, The Clermont Armory with a subsidy for middle income and Welfare folks with zero problems in four years. I did hear a complaint from a client I rented at 100 John street over 10 years ago because the developer rented a block of apartments to a college for student housing.

We're all clearly doomed, thanks in large part to this program. We should probably move to Chicago.

A woman who works in the cafeteria of my former high school lives in an 80/20 building and I am telling you she deserves it. She totally and completely deserves to have a lovely apartment for her and her family. She is a warm, wonderful person and I am glad the 80/20 program exists, so people like her can get to enjoy what the rich take for granted. And who is to say that the rich are so honorable? I think Bernie Madoff put the lie to that. Give me my former lunch lady as a neighbor ANY day over some of the spoiled brat richies I have known.

Oh, and this woman was vetted HARD. They don't let just anybody in, you know. She had to prove she would be a good tenant, and she did, and if the hard-working, friendly demeanor she always had at school (and being a high school lunch lady is NOT easy) is any indication, she is a wonderful tenant.

I can't tell you how disgusted I am by some of the comments and assumptions on this board. Since when does wealth guarantee good behavior or make good neighbors? Since when does poverty (and it's easy to be poor in this city) preclude it?

yes.

I swear I think I saw rufus puking in my lobby after assaulting my doorman with rusty switchblade.

The typical NYC socialist?

Seriously Rufus, take your meds.

lol. rufus you do keep it entertaining!

I get it now "rufus" is a 100% made up persona. I think this board has been played like a three legged mariachi dog.

Wtf, are people really defending this program?

"A woman who works in the cafeteria of my former high school lives in an 80/20 building and I am telling you she deserves it. She totally and completely deserves to have a lovely apartment for her and her family. She is a warm, wonderful person and I am glad the 80/20 program exists, so people like her can get to enjoy what the rich take for granted."

Are you serious? A person is a nice so they deserve a luxury apartment in Manhattan? What's next...

He's a warm, wonderful person and I'm glad the "fuck a model" program exists, so people like him can get to enjoy what the beautiful take for granted.

Yea, that's how stupid you sound. You know the difference between judging whether someone is "nice" and whether someone deserves a high salary - one requires someone else to put money on the table, the other doesn't cost a dime.

You think the "rich" that bust their ass 80 hours a week take their apartment for granted? You think people pay them that kind of money to sit around on their ass all day? Are you serious or do you just boil over with jealousy as you sit in your tollbooth all day?

P.S. Not as if the people you are calling "rich" are actually rich by Manhattan standards. If you are renting a $4,000 2-BR you are about as middle class as it gets for this city.

"And who is to say that the rich are so honorable? I think Bernie Madoff put the lie to that. Give me my former lunch lady as a neighbor ANY day over some of the spoiled brat richies I have known."

Wow, before I thought you just stupid - now I know you are completely delusional. I love how anything wrong with the "rich" now gets related back to Madoff as if that is some representative example. It's the same as the whining you did when rufus complained about the poor shitting all over an 80/20 apartment - oh, except Madoff is just one person. Want me to list out examples of crimes by the underclass in this city?

Do you think Bernie Madoff is living in an 80/20 apartment? How out of touch with reality are you?

"Oh, and this woman was vetted HARD. They don't let just anybody in, you know."

Guess what buddy. The people who live in that building at market rates were vetted HARD too. They had to prove to someone else that they can command the income to live in the building.

"She had to prove she would be a good tenant, and she did, and if the hard-working, friendly demeanor she always had at school (and being a high school lunch lady is NOT easy) is any indication, she is a wonderful tenant."

Yea...being a lunch lady is not easy. That's why it doesn't take a college education or training. This whole post smacks of bullshit. Lunch lady? Are you just making this shit up? Do us all a favor and go jump off a bridge.

Lunch lady is a bit of an absurd story, but I appreciate the creativity. But forget the people in the 80/20 who earn more, upset that someone pays less in their building.

Think about the other lunch ladies and lunch men. And the breakfast and dinner ladies and gentlemen too. They see one of their colleagues got lucky to live in a luxury building by doing exactly what they do and they have to live in harsher conditions and are personally no better or no worse (they are friendly and work hard too, or if you take it from rufus' point of view, they also puke in lobbies and get into the same type of fights with doormen).

I know several drug addicts who managed to get into these buildings. The process is not stringent at all. Theburkhardtgroup has no idea what he's talking about. He's probably a broker trying to get clients to sign leases at these places.

It appears that people are forgetting that Manhattan is not all luxury high rises. There are plenty of areas all over Manhattan (especially far uptown) that have traditional low and mid rise buildings with affordable prices. Why can't these people live there?

These buildings are called "luxury" for a reason. Telling people of lower income that a pool, sun deck, and fitness center within your apartment building is a right and/or necessity is just plain wrong.

People have a right to affordable and comfortable housing - but you don't need to live in a 50th floor, normally $6000 a month apt to achieve that.

mercuricoxide, I agree completely with what you said. Living in a luxury building is not your constitutonal or God given right.

One caveat though. The bigger units on the upper floors, are almost always market rate. From my understanding, most of the subsidized people live on the lower floors, which unbelievably, led to complaints by various people.

quantum, you keep good company with all those drug addicts you know.

to quantum:

Oh, I see. If it's the lowest floors with no views/ brick wall, then I don't understand heated debates either. These units would be hard to rent at market rate anyway.

But I still stand by sun deck/ fitness center/ and pool should not be a right.

mercuricoxide, again I agree. The 80/20 program is a travesty.

80/20 is abominable and should be choked off. If you can't afford market rate in a prime neighborhood, try moving further away like the rest of the market rate paying people. It's called queens, or brooklyn, or the bronx. I see no reason to keep this privileged program around in manhattan.

Obviously some of you don't like this "welfare" but let's keep in mind it's the developers who opt in. It is essentially a tax "subsidy" for them, let's not hate on the folks who simply apply for a program that exists.

Travesty? More like a small pimple in the wake of 6 billion to GMAC and all the other welfare given out to AIG, Ford, GM and the other (deserving) banks out there receiving tarp funds. Yes let's give billions away to the bright people that got us into this mess.Now that's a travesty.

When you want real free markets, true capitalism and deregulated markets with out government interference the only thing that keeps you honest is the FEAR of losing everything. Now the government has sent out a signal that hey if you highly educated quants, bankers, brokers etc screw up and bring down the global economy with you....get in line and we'll hand out the welfare checks until you get back on your feet.
Ok I'm way off topic but all you true believers out there with your pantie's in a twist about the socialist 80/20 program got me thinking...

Obviously some of you don't like this "welfare" but let's keep in mind it's the developers who opt in. It is essentially a tax "subsidy" for them, let's not hate on the folks who simply apply for a program that exists.

Travesty? More like a small pimple in the wake of 6 billion to GMAC and all the other welfare given out to AIG, Ford, GM and the other (deserving) banks out there receiving tarp funds. Yes let's give billions away to the bright people that got us into this mess.Now that's a travesty.

When you want real free markets, true capitalism and deregulated markets with out government interference the only thing that keeps you honest is the FEAR of losing everything. Now the government has sent out a signal that hey if you highly educated quants, bankers, etc screw up and bring down the global economy with you....get in line and we'll hand out the welfare checks until you get back on your feet.
Ok I'm way off topic but all you true believers out there with your pantie's in a twist about the socialist 80/20 program got me thinking...

When socialists are faced with the insanity of their programs they just change the subject and wave their arms and scream about something else. Kind of like JuiceMan and his 2008 bullish predictions.

"It's all relative" as Einstein liked to say.

I don't mind subsidizing non-white neighbors.
I just can't stand the outrageous sense of entitlement, the awful clothing/appearance/rasta hair, the loud ghetto blaster music/drumming, the attitude, etc.
These people KNOW we are paying their rents, yet it feels as if they think it is not ENOUGH, they seem to harbor a strong RESENTMENT towards the 'white guys with all the nice stuff' and they simply cannot just blend in.
They LIKE to live in the upper east side in a SAFE, CLEAN, PLEASANT environment, yet they bring and show off all the SHIT from the ghetto.
Am I the only one here seeing a contradiction???

> There's been a lot of negative comments on this board, regarding the 80/20 program. Are there any positives to this program? Also, for those of you who live in 80/20 rental buildings, what have your experience been like?

excellent experience, everybody happy as far as i can tell.

moved as soon as the building was finished, around 6 years ago. was half empty for a year as it was surrounded by empty lots nobody wanted to develop for a decade. no yellow cabs, no retail considered "adequate" for most. many asked directly WTF? about our new location.

nowadays all apartments that become vacant get great tenants within a week or 2. great supermarket (best yet), starbucks, almost all empty lots had been replaced by new buildings. yellow cabs galore. great new playground 2 blocks away.

it took the biggest real estate bubble on record and subsidies (like the city's decision to sell the empty lot that was empty for decades for $1) to bring back to life a whole section of Manhattan. so more than questioning the subsidies that Bloomberg used to bring it back, I'd question the process that lead on the previous destruction in the 70s and 80s administrations.

hi,i've live in two 80/20 buildings, and the current one is an 80/20. I think they designate the 20 percent on the lower floors, but not sure. my last building on the other hand; it was a free-for-all... i kinda felt like i was living in the projects, b/c one of the 20 per centers lived next door and smoked pot and they fought all day. One time the cops were called to break up the fight between the couple. i was paying about 3500 plus for a one bedroom, while they had a nice two bedroom. It just boggled my mind how hard-working people have to pay so much money, while "able-bodied" people live scott free? it is bothersome, but every case is different. was the 80/20 designed to encourage people in the lower economic echelon to be inspired by the 80 percent and join the working force? it just seems like a human ecology theory intended to work for an ecosystem like an 80/20 building, but form my experience. it's just easy to live off the government, if you are privileged to be eligible for the program.

Plenty of 80s and 20s smoke pot, you know. Its not just coloreds and hippies anymore.

Also, the 80/20 program doesn't provide free housing. The below-market units are just cheaper than usual, and a lot of 80/20 units are targeted at middle-income folks. I know it's hard (and probably insufferable) for some of the folks on this thread to imagine "non-whites" might be able to make a middle class wage, but it turns out some of them do. Then again, these are probably a lot of the same people that think $400K of income makes you middle class.

"was the 80/20 designed to encourage people in the lower economic echelon to be inspired by the 80 percent and join the working force? "

It was more for the developer to get tax incentives, and perhaps even be allowed to build in the first place.

On some level, perhaps. That was the whole thinking behind the government's moving away from building "projects" and instead creating the "Section 8" voucher system, allowing people who would otherwise be living in those dreadful institutional housing units -- with each other -- to move into buildings and neighborhoods they could never otherwise afford.

Unfortunately, that grand social engineering plan has failed miserably. People who work their asses off and pay their own way have absolutely nothing in common with the "entitlement" class, and frankly their presence in the living space THEY had to actually work hard to get into only breeds resentment.

And the Section 8-ers, far from being "inspired", actually feel even more isolated and worse about their personal situations.

It's a lose-lose for everyone involved.

***

"I know it's hard (and probably insufferable) for some of the folks on this thread to imagine "non-whites" might be able to make a middle class wage, but it turns out some of them do. Then again, these are probably a lot of the same people that think $400K of income makes you middle class.

No, what's "insufferable" for "some of the folks" is knowing that there are people living in the same building, in the same size apartment, enjoying the same amenities, for considerably less just because they're "middle income" -- while everyone else has to pay triple.

I live in a 80/20 in the upper east side. The subsidized tenants are in general the least friendly, and there is always very little contact with neighbors anyway, particularly in Manhattan. Does it really benefit the society to have more tax-funded diversity? I don't think so. People who get the cheaper apartments learn, just like the 12 million American on LONG-TERM DISABILITY, that it is better to time the system than to work hard. When you offer people the option to get things for free, surprise surprise, many choose the free option. And you basically get a vicious cycle of people who get things the easy way, and teach their children to do the same. The other day my wife met one kid from one of these families in the laundry room. He asked her if she liked the building, my wife said yes, how about you? He said, its ok, but I would really like an entertainment room with a pool table (SIC). We had another family living right beside us in the 2 bedroom apartment. They would get into fights at all times of night, screaming like animals. The husband finally was kicked out after one terrible fight that woke us up at 4am. The wife and daughter moved to another apartment elsewhere in the bldg. Do you think I or my children benefit from having these people as neighbors???
To be honest, yes, I can’t help resenting the fact that I pay 5 times as much for studio when they get the 2 bedroom and still complaint. It is simply not right. The US is gradually becoming like some other countries where they keep people on welfare as they go out and burn cars every holiday. The west is simply self-destructing. Just wait a few years.

So funny. None of you 80 percenters living in 80/20 buildings need to live there. If its so awful, move somewhere else.

Cronopio, which is the primary issue - the tenants to whom you refer are lousy neighbors (eg 4am fights) or the tenants are getting a big discount to your rent?

>> Do you think I or my children benefit from having these people as neighbors??? To be honest, yes, I can’t help resenting the fact that I pay 5 times as much for studio when they get the 2 bedroom and still complaint.

Are all the following really true?

1. You live in a studio with wife and at least 2 kids.
2. Your 20% neighbor only pays $400 rent for 2BR as compared to your (say) $2000 studio.

>> He said, its ok, but I would really like an entertainment room with a pool table

Newsflash: kids like fun stuff.

Fun story I heard. Kid of wealthy but well-grounded parents, 3000+ sq ft apt, goes to trophy apt of ultra-wealthy play date. High floor, park views, penthouse, 10,000+ sq ft, the works. Asks "Mommy, can we get a nice apt too?"

greensdale
7 days ago
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Member since: Sep 2012
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Cronopio, which is the primary issue - the tenants to whom you refer are lousy neighbors (eg 4am fights) or the tenants are getting a big discount to your rent?

When I lived in one - which was pretty high end - there were generally no major issues.

Though... one on my floor was clearly some sort of small-time pot dealer. Nice guy, but interesting crowd sometimes. Might just be what having a full service / managed building is like. If the staff is thin, I can imagine that things get taken advantage of.

One observation... lots of Chinese folks who knew each other. I think word must get around with all the opportunities in the Chinatown community, many apply, and several get it. I believe there were more chinese in these apartments in my buildng than african american or hispanic, the latter two which I believe outnumber chinese in the city.