The Struggling Rent-Stabilized

The prices paid for building with statutory tenants were based on those tenants' rents, not on free-market rents. Some buyers might've gambled on the RC laws changing to their advantage. The smart ones didn't.

and got real rich particularly when they co-oped the buildings.

matt--grow up; but on someone else's nickel.

"yep...some landlords got screwed but a whole bunch also got filthy, stinking rich even with RS."

Really.

Who?

...

Okay, are your ready? Take a deep breath in before you say
the Lefraks, the Tisches, the Urises, the Dursts, the Tishmans, the Rudins, the Horowitzes, the Ravitches, the Minskoffs, the Milsteins, Sol Goldman, Frederic Rose, Aaron Gural, Leo and Alexander Bing, the Resnicks, the Fishers, the Koeppels, the Wiens, the Cohens, the Silversteins, the list goes on and on. Oh, and all those many many landlords who cry poverty every year when it comes time to set new increase rates yet refuse to open their books for confirmation. I guess they're bashful.

and the melohns...

"or laws that cover ALL rental housing regardless of when it's built, it's quite obvious that little rental housing would ever be built -- but it should shift development to owner-occupied new construction. Did that happen"

That did yes, there was a condo boom in SF in the 70s so they started exempting new rental construction from rent control to encourage rental buidling being built and also made it harder to convert to condos, which lead to the wonderful TIC - tenants in common - purchases. Sort of like a coop in a way, ten strangers would buy a ten unit apartment building, and then move in and kick out the tenants because now the buidling was "owner occupied." All sorts of crazy shenangans.

What is funny is that SF lost 90% of its black population, as did Berkeley, because THEY COULD NOT AFFORD TO LIVE THERE per the various community activists...and they all moved to non-rent-controlled Oakland, which still remains cheaper than either Berkley or SF. Even in the Oakland hills, and Claremont, etc - very nice neighborhoods, its cheaper to rent than right across the border in rent-controlled Berkley or across the bay in crappy parts of SF.

And BTW that is often the text book example. IDENTICAL neighborhoods right next to each other, one rent controlled one not (Berkeley versus north Oakland, Kensington, and Albany, Santa Monica versus west LA, Marina del Rey, etc...and even West Hollywood versus Hollyood and Beveryly Hills. Yes, that is right. In the flats of non-rent controlled BH its can be easier and cheaper to get an apt than in rent-controlled WeHo.)

Alan great comments but I have to tell you I always thought Danceteria was a horrible fire trap and every time I went there I got really paranoid.

"Okay, are your ready? Take a deep breath in before you say the Lefraks, the Tisches, the Urises, the Dursts, the Tishmans, the Rudins, the Horowitzes, the Ravitches, the Minskoffs, the Milsteins, Sol Goldman, Frederic Rose, Aaron Gural, Leo and Alexander Bing, the Resnicks, the Fishers, the Koeppels, the Wiens, the Cohens, the Silversteins, the list goes on and on. Oh, and all those many many landlords who cry poverty every year when it comes time to set new increase rates yet refuse to open their books for confirmation. I guess they're bashful."

So you've seen the books of all those families, yes?

I realize this post is insanely long, but Alanhart seems educated and I hope you have the patience to read it.

Alan - it's clear you're very involved in the RS process and I think it's safe to assume you live in an RS apartment currently.
My stance is that it would be a total disaster for the City if we were to abolish RS - think of all of the people who would be displaced - it would be a mess. But I do have a couple of points for you.

1. Rangel's landlord didn't break the law by letting Rangel have 4 RS apartments, but Rangel did break the law by having 4 stabilized apartments. Had Rangel been a normal citizen his actions who have been fine, but clearly having an RS apartment that is used as office space is breaking campaign contribution laws.

2. You can't say that landlords who bought stabilized buildings "knew what they were getting themselves into." Even you've admitted in your posts that the RS laws change. Landlords bought under one set of circumstances and now must operate under another. Would landlords in the Bronx have purchased buildings in the last couple of years if they knew it was going to take at least 10 months to evict a non-pay case?

3. You quote "Many wealthy people in Manhattan live in RS apartments" then ask "Data, Source?" Well if there aren't any wealthy people in RS apartments then I'm sure you won't have any problem eliminating the two prong approach for luxury decontrol. You'd have to look high and low to find a government statute more wrongheaded than one that says "If you're rich and your rent is high you can't keep your apartment. But if you're rich and you have a really low rent then you get to keep your apartment." The concept is so nonsensical.
There is no logical explanation why we subsidize rents for the rich.

4. Plenty of people live with grandma for 1 year (assuming grandma is over 62 you only need to live there 1 year) and then take over the apartment when she moves to Florida (she need not die to get her unit). In reality the way it really works is the grandchild changes his driver's license address, bank accounts address, voting records etc and doesn't move in, but when grandma moves or dies the grandchild claims to have lived there for more than 1 year. It goes to court - the grandchild has mail with an address and the landlord has the word of the super - you're on the jury - who wins?

5. You claim that rent stabilization was a temporary program to help reduce the housing shortage. Why then do we allow people with RS apartments to have multiple homes? What could be worse for a housing shortage than giving some retired guy a $1,000 apartment in the City when he spends 6 months a year out East? We must not allow people with RS apartments to own or live in other units.

RS is a clumsy system. It protects the few at the expense of the many. If you don't think non-RS city dwellers are subsidizing RS tenants then let's pass a law that says if your a landlord you can elect to pay 2x your current property taxes for the right to destabilize your building. Certainly landlords throughout the city would gladly pay 2x, the City's tax revenue would increase and we could then give a tax cut to everyone.

RS is fools gold. It discourages home ownership. All of the benefits you mention about RS could and would be accomplished better if 66% of people owned in the City instead of 33%.

The cost or monitoring the system is unbelievable. Imagine how much free housing we could supply to people if we could eliminate much or all of HPD, Housing Courts, DHCR, ECB, DOB, 311 etc and spend the money on the people who actually need the housing.

RS has is benefits, again I like the system and think we should keep it - capitalism is not perfect I know - but there are some things about RS that must be changed. Foremost among them are luxury decontrol and allowing tenants multiple residences.

Jason: "What is funny is that SF lost 90% of its black population" ... a laff-riot, just like Jim Crow. Separate, equal ... sounds great.

Liz: Firetrap, absolutely, as with so many establishments at that time. As it happened, no fires, but I think their demise had something to do with the ancient elevator door giving way while some kid leaned on it, or with him dying from the resulting fall. One or the other.

jazzman, read what i said above...its not fair, and as I said Rangel is a pig and you are absolutely right that it makes no sense that more expensive places get decontrolled, but can you really make a coherent argument that anything would have been better without it?

you are on very shaky ground when you suggest that non-RS tenants are stabilizing RS tenants. actually, that is ridiculous and i would imagine that you know it. landlords charge as much as they possibly can based on the market and the laws and that's as it should be. if RS went away, then they would charge as much as they can...

it is not fair. it is imperfect and some people have gained unfairly. but, tell us how nyc would have become a far better place had it not existed.

Matt -- yes, they're all big fans of Reader's Digest Condensed Books.

Jazzman, I'm not in a rent-regulated apartment and have no plans of moving into one, but I have in the past lived in a couple of them ... serially, though.

1. I don't believe any law prohibits one from having more than one RS apartment, but it's grounds for losing it if the landlord objected. Rangel was probably on record with DHCR for each of the apartments. I'm not defending him, though, and I certainly wouldn't defend campaign-law violations for anybody.

2. Landlords who bought since WWII know that the free market didn't apply to the homes they bought. They can and do lobby, and make certain changes, the can hope for certain things to change in the future. Coca-Cola can hope that Pepsi will close up shop, Esso can hope to get exclusive rights to East Coast gas sales, or that fuel taxes are eliminated. That's business.

3. As I've explained twice in this thread, my problem with luxury decontrol is that it doesn't just displace the tenant, but it also removes the apartment from the supply of affordable apartments. I would have fewer problems with a fairly-structured luxury decontrol law that merely displaced the wealthy tenant.

4. That's correct (1 year for seniors), but a landlord who does a good job keeping an eye on his building knows who's actually there and who isn't. Coops manage to.

5. At the time RC/RS was set up, a country house for a New Yorker was most often a worthless, unwinterized, gnat-filled shack in the Borscht Belt -- often part of a bungalow colony with a communal kitchen in another shack. But I have no problem at all with banning ownership of a second home of substantial value in the area as a condition of rent stabilized leaseholding.

RS is indeed a necessarily clumsy system, because it balances the interests of two groups (tenants and landlords).

Tax cut -- by "everyone" you mean landlords, homeowners, plus the City. That does nearly nothing for most people.

Home ownership -- not necessarily a good goal, although it has been found to correlate nationally with GOP registration, so some would consider that a benefit, I suppose. I don't know if there was causation. As we've seen from the current national crisis, not everyone is cut out to be a homeowner. I've even heard it said that it's always cheaper to rent than to own.

Administration costs vs. housing cost argument is somewhat disingenuous, given the way the dollars of the latter dwarf the dollars of the former.

***"3. As I've explained twice in this thread, my problem with luxury decontrol is that it doesn't just displace the tenant, but it also removes the apartment from the supply of affordable apartments. I would have fewer problems with a fairly-structured luxury decontrol law that merely displaced the wealthy tenant."***

But in most cases, the apartment is only "affordable" because the landlord has been unfairly forced to subsidize it!

***"I've even heard it said that it's always cheaper to rent than to own."***

Just because you hear it often doesn't mean it's true. In most cases, over the long run, the reverse is true.

matt--grow up; but on someone else's nickel.

so nyc needs more unaffordable apartments? that will improve the community? are you nuts?

"so nyc needs more unaffordable apartments? that will improve the community? are you nuts?"

Define "unaffordable". Unaffordable by whose standards? If there aren't enough tenants to fill an inventory of $3000/month apartments, the cost to the landlords of holding onto vacant apartments will exceed the cost of reducing the price of those apartments, and corrections will be made to make them more "affordable" -- albeit to the highest bidders (the way it works everywhere else in America).

CC, I have no idea what you just posted.

All apartments are "affordable" -- it just depends on whose budget you're looking at.

Love the name-calling.

Klassy.

wow CC is angry. He must live in a rent stablized apt. I hope his landlord does not find out about his seond house in Columbia County brcause that would not be good.

And why is it that everyone here is strongly oposed to governent intervention to inflate home prices, but they seem to have no problem with Socialist laws that suppress rents?

matty boy---you gotta know you're in trouble when alpo is on your side.

alanhart.

4. It doesn't matter that a landlord knows the grandchild doesn't live there - the courts expect landlords to be able to prove where the grandchild does live or have video evidence that the grandchild didn't live in the grandparent's apartment. Co-ops often benefit from having doormen which help the situation for the landlord.
If a grandchild gets all of his mail at grandma's and doesn't have a mortgage, lease, phonebill etc in another apartment then it's nearly impossible for a landlord to prove that the grandchild doesn't live there unless the landlord consistently video tapes every tenant's apartment and every tenant's progeny.

I don't get why it matters that an apartment with a millionaire in it would get deregulated with luxury decontrol. What good is the apartment doing as an "affordable" unit? How is its being affordable helping out our society? That apartment is essentially lost from stabilization under any circumstance, either now through luxury decontrol or over time when the tenant dies. There is no way that that unit will ever provide affordable living for anyone in the future (other than for the rich guy or his rich kids). So why not kick out the rich guy now and provide more market rate housing stock for recent college grads?

I would argue that a tax cut for everyone is a good thing for everyone.

I'd like to see a few changes to the system (most are pro landlord).
1. Luxury decontrol for anyone making 3x the median income.
2. Tenants must live in their apartments 10 months a year. (allowing snowbirds to keep a stabilized unit vacant 6 months a year is asinine).
3. Non-pay evictions should take no more than 4 months.
4. You should be able to evict someone for non primary residence reasons anytime (but only once per lease term). It's nonsense that landlords have to wait until the end of a lease.
5. If tenants are caught illegally subletting (that is they move out and rent the apartment) or profiteering (they have a 4 bedroom apartment and have multiple roommates who pay more than their fair share of the rent) then the landlord should be able to sue them for triple damages.
6. Landlords should be able to sue tenants for harassment. If a tenant calls 311 fifty times in a month and there are no problems then landlords should have some out.
7. Landlords should only be required to paint apartments every 10 years. Really what condo owner paints there apartment every 3 years?
8. There should be rules that prohibit landlords from taking rent increase if there are too many HPD violations on the units.
9. The city should stop raising property taxes so rent increases of 1 or 2% would be justifiable.
10. Make it illegal to destabilize Mitchell Lama properties.
11. Make it illegal to use the owner occupied eviction for more than 5,000 sq ft, require that the owner live there for 10 years or more, and allow it only once in a person lifetime.

"That apartment is essentially lost from stabilization under any circumstance, either now through luxury decontrol or over time when the tenant dies." That assumes vacancy decontrol, which I also thing is wrong. I don't believe in removing apartments from rent stabilization until the original City-wide vacancy-rate requirements are met.

3. Too often, a tenant isn't paying because the LL isn't keeping up his responsibilities. If you mean barring that, and an escrow arrangement, and other significant circumstances, I agree.
5. No, the roomers should be able to sue the primary tenant for damages under that situation.
6. This sounds like a hypothetical to me. How many cases like this, really?
7. Agreed, assuming modern paints rated at the right lifespan, and assuming the recommended two coats, and assuming not watered down.
8. Aren't there already? Or is that just on a particular unit?
9. If they don't already, they should peg taxes to actual rent rolls.
11. I agree that this needs to be tightened up a bit, but 10 years might be a bit much, and what's the remedy if not? Also, I think there's a difference between restoring an original townhouse or original large apartment to single-family use v. combining multiple-dwelling units into a single-family house, as in the infamous LES tenement.

10. Mitchell-Lama properties were never stabilized until they started opting out, and I believe that they were never intended to be. They weren't rolled into RC when they were created, and RS makes no mention of them when it was created. ML developers agreed in good faith to build and accept a fixed return for a specified number of years, and the buyout process was specified at that time. To turn around at this point and slip in RS when it was never imposed before is absurd. I recognize that tenants should have been notified of the sunset possibility annually, and weren't, to the point where everyone forgot, but the remedy should be to allow a LL maybe three years of annual notices, and that's it ... done. This is important to get LLs to cooperate in similar schemes with sunset clauses, like 80/20, and have a high level of confidence that the terms will be honored. For ML coops, I have mixed feelings, but ultimately feel that (because the buildings are owned by the residents, and also because the buyout process was similarly specified from the start) they should be able to opt if they want to.

5. That's the way it currently works - the roomers can sue for triple damages - but I think the landlord loses out here too- the landlord should be making the money from renting units not the tenants. My real gripe here though is this. A tenant signs a two year lease for $800 then moves out the next day. He rents his apartment out for $3,000/month. The landlord can't evict for non-primary because it's not the end of the tenant's lease. So the tenant is protected in his illegal subletting for 24 months. (This is one of the laws that Pataki try to reverse on his way out the door, but Spitzer put back in place his first week in office - not sure why Spitzer would do it)
6. Every landlord I've ever met tells me they spend 70% of their time dealing with 10% of their tenants. If a tenant calls the city to complain about no heat when the temp is 70 degrees outside the city's staff still has to inspect even though the laws don't require the landlord to provide any heat in this situation. The landlord has no relief. A friend tried this. Call 311, pretend you are a landlord and you want to make a complaint about a tenant - they don't know what to do. Hang up. Call 311, pretend you are a tenant complaining about a landlord - there are probably 5 different divisions of government they'll let you choose from to take your complaint. Why not give the landlord a chance to at least make a grievance. Surely there are bad tenants out there and surely in a system that requires landlords to renew leases to every stabilized tenant the landlord should have some avenue to log complaints and have the City investigate. Then the landlord should be able to take the investigator's findings to housing court to eventually get an eviction if behaviors don't change.
8. HPD violations are not considered when rent increase are calculated. Even a building with 20 HPD violations per unit still gets to take it's annual rent increases.
9. The most profitable buildings pay the most taxes in theory (although its a joke that $20M townhouses on the UES are taxed at similar rates to a $10M rental building in the Bronx) But the problem with taxes is when they raise everyones taxes by 10% that doesn't mean everyone's net income went up enough to cover that increase.

How sure are you about #10 - I've read conflicting reports about this.
If you're right how would a court not rule that the government is "taking" the landlord's property? It seems such a clear "takings" case that I've just assumed those who claim the opt out to market rate was not allowed in the original contact to be correct.
If you are right about the original contract then I'm with you. The government shouldn't be involved in bait and switch games (that's the job of real estate brokers right).

11 - exactly - townhouses should be allowed - large tenements should not - that 5,000 sq ft number was a broad brush stroke in case someone would paint a tenement brown and then call it a brownstone. Some 25 ft wide tenant buildings could blur the lines.

OK, envision it. get rid of RS. today, no yesterday. what happens to development in the city? what happens to the population? what happens to the developers? do you think glenwood and rose would want complete and immediate elimination of RS with the amounts of money they are currently sinking into new developments?

what happens to the price of homes that are owned?

we don't have enough people/income currently to keep prices stable.

julia thinks she has a right as an American to live exactly where she wants to at whatever price is affordable to her???? Wow. Credibility lost.

alan sure seems to throw incorrect facts and statements around a lot. Rents in Queens and Brooklyn are not that much less than Manhattan??

"we don't have enough people/income currently to keep prices stable."

Aboutready, are you making the argument that we need rent stabilization in order to keep housing prices high?

LICComment...not at whatever price I can afford or want to pay...I am saying at a "reasonable" price for Manhattan. I'm not comparing the rental of an apartment in Manhattan to Knoxville. I'm saying LLs should not be allowed to let their greed destroy the fabric of Manhattan. Where will the creative people live...

Julia - do you support cost regulations for groceries, medicine/health care, closes, entertainment as well? If not, why not a person has to eat just as much as they need a place to stay.

This is a big city julia. Five boroughs. There are lots of areas that are affordable without rent stabilization. Don't use the false excuse of "where will the creative people go" to justify being a Manhattan snob.

So, if I deem myself creative, I am therefore automatically eligible for discounted rent in the most expensive city in the country? What is the reasonable price for an apartment in Manhattan? LLs would clearly have different views than prospective renters. Let the market decide. By the way, there are many creative people who are also extremely well off financially due to their talents.

I posted a real life example of the damages of RS earlier in this thread. Here's another. One of my friends took over a nice RS apartment in Union Square around 1992 after one of his work colleagues moved out to LI. My friend got promoted, earned more, got married, had a child, and also moved out to LI. He contacted another of our friends to take over the "cheap" apartment. About 6 months after the new guy moved in, the original renter (name on lease) decided he didn't want to have to keep sending in checks to the landlord and told the new guy that he would have to move or pay whatever the LL asked. After a negotiation, the new guy agreed to pay rent + $500 to the original tenant. So, a wealthy guy out on the Island is receiving $500/month because he happened to rent an apartment in the late 80's. A few years later, the LL was able to determine that the original tenant lived on LI and forced the new guy out (along with many other scoff laws) in that building. Bottom line is, RS increases the rent paid by all of the people who don't have RS by reducing the number of available apartments. LLs are, in fact, greedy and renters will seek the lowest rent. In times like right now, LLs can be greedy but they must lower their rents to attract renters. In good times, renters will drive up prices by bidding against one another. That's how a market is supposed to work.

Julia,
You sound so uppity. "Where will the creative people live ..."
Give me a break. As if living outside manhattan will be death.

"LLs should not be allowed to let their greed destroy the fabric of Manhattan"
Do you have any clue what a typical return on investment for Landlords in manhattan is?

I am just looking for reasonable, not cheap...paying $2495 for a small dump is not reasonable...LLs need to be held to a standard that does not include excessive greed...

julia: also should be applied to Prada, and luxury cars, and whatever else you can't afford.
By the way, "LLs need to be held to a standard": held by who, exactly?

chasing wamus. devil's advocacy. get rid of RS in a disorderly fashion and you screw just about everyone.

I do think it's unfortunate that median-income people cannot even remotely afford median-priced housing. Rent stabilization probably contributes to that, but not nearly as much as whacked-out lending standards and government's/banks' willingness to allow people to mortgage themselves to the hilt and then have taxpayers pick up the tab.

I support libertarian principles, even if it means living in Brooklyn, Hoboken, or Philadelphia, but save the "free market" cries for when government stops using taxpayer money to prop up the property values and pay the salaries of the people who caused this mess while giving a laughable $8k tax credit to the responsible.

"LLs are, in fact, greedy and renters will seek the lowest rent."

Just because someone tries to get the best price for a product or a service doesn't make them "greedy".

Are YOU greedy when you try to negotiate the highest salary with your employer? Or do you gladly accept a lower salary that's more "fair" to your employer?

Is the shopkeeper down the street "greedy" when he tries to charge as much as he can for his wares, to maximize his profit? Or should he say "You know what, its really crazy to charge a whole $3.79 for a jar of peanut butter -- why don't you just take it for a dollar?"

Seriously? Do you really not understand how a capitalist system works?

Indeed, by your definition, everyone on this board is "greedy" when they try to maximize the sale prices of their apartments.

Matt, I actually understand capitalism very well and happen to agree with you. I simply used the word "greedy" (which has a very negative connotation) to describe how LLs (and all sellers in general) should act to efficiently distribute goods/services that are not unlimited. They should attempt to get the highest rent that the market will bear just as us "cheap" renters should negotiate the lowest rate. May we meet in the middle and strike a deal. RS distorts this in my view.

Jazzman, my understanding is that the buyout process was specified in the original agreements, but no mention at all was made of RS. What politicians are saying today is that they should be considered the same as any rental buildings that were built in the year they were built (or put into service), thus the pre-1974 sweep applies to them. My argument in the face of ambiguity is that they would've been both rent-stabilized AND Mitchell-Lama from 1974 on if that were the case. The idea that everyone simply forgot to register them as RS for 35 years is a bit absurd.

park14, landlords DO meet tenants "in the middle" to strike a deal. It's the rent that the tenant agrees to pay.

No distortion there.

Jazzman, one LL's defense (I think Waterside Plaza) hinged on precisely when the building was put into service, right around 1/1/74, and somehow even that was hard to determine.

Matt, again I agree. The main point of this whole thread is the distortion that RS causes. The distortion is caused by the government interfering in what should be a free market. As a renter, I actually would like to be called "cheap" (also has a negative connotation) because it means I negotiated a good deal for myself.

"This is a big city julia. Five boroughs. There are lots of areas that are affordable without rent stabilization. Don't use the false excuse of "where will the creative people go" to justify being a Manhattan snob. "

Wow, I agree with LICC. Yeah, exactly. Creative people can and DO live in Astoria, Hoboken, Harlem, Staten Island, Wburg, etc. You do not NEED to live in the E.Vil. or Chelea to be a dancer or painter. That entire line of reasoning is absurd.

And in fact, in NON rent-controlled European cities, they do in fact have government-funded artist housing and such. Rent control does not discriminate in favor of the poor, artists, or whatever. Its luck. We ALL know people who have bribed their way into rent controlled situations (I work with a frickin IBANKER who did that), or who "inherited" it from a relative (a Fox news producer I know), etc. It has nothing do with income in far too many cases - especially in these one-off rent-stabilized deals like Gateway Plaza or the Riverside Blvd ones.

jason...you're wrong..creative people need to live in a creative environment....

Yes all the creativity of Barbra Streisand, Basquiat, Bobby Fischer, Beverly Sills just went to waste growing up and/or living in Brooklyn. And God only knows how much jazz suffered from Louis Armstrong and Count Basie living in Queens during the height of their careers. And that's just a scratch on the surface of all the creative New Yorkers who just fallowed in the outer boroughs.

Rent Stabilization is the prime example of New York City Communism. For the lucky who get rent stabilized apartments, there is absolutely NO incentive for a landlord to improve his/her building. For the market rent apartment dwellers, they pay an inflated price than there otherwise would be if there were more market inventory. The city of Cambridge, MA did away with rent stabilization and rent control years ago and guess what? The stabilized tenants didn't go anywhere - they paid the market rent because where they live is a great place to live. The same thing would happen in New York City but will never happen because too many politicos (count to 4 Charlie Rangel) would never vote it out.

julia - the artists will come together in manhattan, if they are discovered, in brooklyn, if they can afford it, in queens, if they are struggling, or in staten island, if they are really not artists at all :-).

The RS system should not deregulate apartments when it becomes $2K and $175K in salary, it should deregulate once it hits $2K. Anyone earning $175K, I think over $100K, should have to give up the RS apartment so that a middle class person/family can move in.

And frankly, it depends on what type of artists you're talking about and what communities are attracted to their art form. Rap music was probably the most far-reaching "art form" to come out of New York in the past generation and that originated from the Bronx, with a very large number of artists coming out of Queens. Poetry slams are held all over the city with few participants ever likely to be "discovered." And I would be willing to be that there are more working atists' studios in Brooklyn than in Manhattan. Artists tend to congregate in neighborhoods where rents are low because no one else wants to live there, not because the government is subsidizing the housing. I will note the exception of Manhattan Plaza in Hell's Kitchen, but no one wanted to live in those buildings when they opened and artists were the only ones who would move into the neighborhood at the time.

if rent stablization is the prime example of communism where do i sign up!

The prime example of communism is socialized sidewalks and communal streets. Privatize and pay-as-you-go!!!

"Privatize and pay-as-you-go"

Paying part is already in place.

If you've ever been on a highway, crossed a bridge, or gone through a tunnel in New York or New Jersey, you'd know that driving a car in this area is like being in a rolling ATM machine with the government taking withdrawals every few miles.

it seems like julia wants me to pay for her Manhattan digs while I stay in Brooklyn... Why?

pay for my place in Manhattan and you move to B'klyn. i've lived here for 25 yrs already, your turn.

ab...i don't know how to get to brooklyn..i'm staying in manhattan.

it's called the MTA trains, most of them :-)

"If you've ever been on a highway, crossed a bridge, or gone through a tunnel in New York or New Jersey, you'd know that driving a car in this area is like being in a rolling ATM machine with the government taking withdrawals every few miles."

Except 3 of the east river crossings are free... and the NYC highways are all free...

Jersey does pay as you go, but Jersey is not NYC (which not all posters on this board get, but its true)

is there a website listing rent stablized bldgs. in Manhattan??