Sale at 136 Waverly Place #5-C

Another example (see http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/408009-coop-433-east-51st-street-beekman-new-york) of taking a decent one-bedroom and screwing it up by trying to turn an 8'x8' dining area into a kid's room.

Agreed. My biggest pet peeve is taking a decent one-bedroom apartment, lopping off the dining room area, and advertising it as a 2-bedroom. Voila! Instant value increase! Drives me completely around the bend.

Why would anyone want a child if it meant destroying a perfectly nice apartment? What if it turns out you don't even like the kid? Then you have a money-draining, time-consuming 18+ year project you can't get rid of AND a lousy apartment floor plan that once was great and made you very happy.

Heh, kyle, I think you misunderstand. My problem is not that the apartment is deformed for the kid's sake - that I completely understand. My problem is that actual 2-bedrooms tend to be bigger and have more appropriate layouts. Marketing the chopped-up one-bedroom as though it's equivalent to the 2-bedroom is ridiculous and patently obvious when looking at the floorplan. There are so many of these right now because so many young families couldn't afford to trade up when they had a child.

Advertise it as a flexible layout - look! Converts to a very small and awkward 2-bedroom! - but don't pretend I'm an idiot who can't tell that they're trying to charge an extra $200,000 for the same space when all they did was slap up a wall.

evnyc: I understood/understand you completely. And I'm not being sarcastic. I think living like that just to be able to have a kid is a horrible compromise. But that aside, I agree that marketing like that insults intelligence of people you want to court. It is obviously not a 2-bedroom any more than putting up crown molding makes an apartment a grand pre-war. And it isn't just the marketing. To think you can charge more for a chopped up junior-four because you put up a wall and have to now dine on your sofa instead of a dining table is just stupid.

Well put! I'm in the market where there's a boatload of these, so it has really come to irritate me.

Agreed that taking a jr 4 putting up a wall doesn't make a 2 bedroom, it makes an ugly apartment. I saw so many of these when I was looking and they never worked even though I really wanted a seperate room as an office/guest room. A close friend was looking in the same price range at the same time...I ended up with a true 2 bedroom/1 bath in a full service but not top tier building and she got an expansive junior 4 with an almost loft like feel but yes, 1 bedroom. Both apartments are the same sq ft but very different, and they both work well in different ways because in both the space is used as intended.

Why would anyone want a child if it meant destroying a perfectly nice apartment?

Well said, KW, but everyone seems to want a rugrat; go figure! It IS a shame that they screwed up this apartment so because now you're forced to take down that blasted wall AFTER you pay for it. There's a lot to like here but just not enough. Ain't working for me.

I think more people really need to think about the value of a good layout over whatever they hope to get by breeding. I look around at the miserable, tired, fathers I see with tiny kids on weekends looking like they can't believe what their lives have become; the parents with crazy-monkey-children climbing and whining and yelling and crying in restaurants and stores; the horrors of driving a minivan; those stupid Hummer-like carriages parked in public halls for everyone to trip over--even those who chose not to spawn; retirement money gobbled up paying a nanny so the parent can do something other than raise the child they wanted so much to start with; vacations taken by necessity on school breaks when everything is crowded, expensive and full of other screaming tots; the constant colds, coughs, and various diseases children seem to constantly communicate to every adult within their reach...ugh. I'd rather be lonely and old with ample retirement funds and a good layout.

kylewest, hear hear. In my own child-less/-free case there's perhaps a bit of sour grapes.

There used to be some great other-people's-kids diatribes in the Usenet days, on alt.tasteless.

but kylewest, who will pay off the government debt, if not the children?

Pity, the "C" line is actually the nicest line in that building. the 2 brs: A & B each only have 1 bath and the A layout is... well rather icky with the bedrooms facing the street and this side window in the livingroom facing a lightwell. The and the other 1 brs are somewhat chintzy.