Living in your childhood apartment....

I don't see the big deal at all. It used to be done all the time. Given we are in hard times those who have this opportunity are the lucky ones.

i couldn't do it, but to each his own.

Easy to call people names, dealboy; you seem like a LOVELY person.

ph41, that LOVELY remind you of someone?

Dealboy, you simply don't get it. Hopefully someday, when you are no longer in your 20s, you will. Until then, you will continue to be an asshole.

I love it!

Aside from the obvious financial considerations, for many people, as the writer of the article explained, it can be quite nourishing to the soul to not only revisit but re-exist in a physical space that has good history, karma, and memories.

It's truly a gift to be able, as an adult, to live in one's childhood home.

Sorry, OP -- sounds like you're jealous, actually. Our friend's son lives in the Ancestral Apartment and pays under $800/month for a 2-BR prewar apartment with a dining room. He says he's got the greatest deal ever and doesn't feel like a loser at all.

dumb boy

What I'm really curious about in multi-sibling families is how they decided who got the ancestral apartment.

In an era of foreclosed homes and foregone dreams, the stories of a few lucky souls able to age in place, are sweet.

nyc10023,
Steel cage match, according to RBNY rules and regulations.

Free Wbottom!

What are Wbottom's contributions?

"What I'm really curious about in multi-sibling families is how they decided who got the ancestral apartment."

In the case of our friends' apartment, it was by default. The older sibling moved on to a job in a different state where she now owns a house. The younger one stayed because he had no other place to go when the parents moved out. It all worked out well and everyone is satisfied.

> What I'm really curious about in multi-sibling families is how they decided who got the ancestral apartment.

In other words, the loser sibling gets it.

General: that's fine in a rental situation, but what if the building gets converted - do the kids split any profits to be made?

Only in your eyes, dear boy.

10023: Selling the apartment and splitting the profits is the usual course, assuming the decision wasn't made by a bequest to one child.

As Generalogoun said, if the apartment stays in the family, differing life circumstances usually make the decision easier than you might think. In a family with multiple kids, there might only be one for whom the combination of location, cost, space and timing makes any sense, and for whom returning to the parents' apartment is emotionally attractive. The other siblings may have left New York for good, or found their long-term home elsewhere in the city.

On the financial side, with a coop, there's sometimes only one sibling who has the resources to buy the others out of their share and pass the Board. So, to put it in dealboy's charming terms, the NON-loser sibling gets it.

I think there is something very rich in a home being lived in by generations of a family. Set aside the rent control debate. The idea of a space layered in the history of those who have lived within it and all the emotional resonance that comes from that is kind of fascinating to me. If it were homesteads in Vermont or an old plantation house in the south, no one would think it odd that it stayed within a family. Why should an apartment be any different. In a way, it is a micro version of why NYC holds so many of us in its grip: everywhere we walk, each block in some areas, echo with the footsteps of our young selves. We walk a street but see more than is there at the moment. We see the buildings that have been replaced years ago. We recall feelings and thoughts we had there at another time in our life. We can be there in our minds with people who were once close to us but are no longer in our lives. We see theatres where we can remember shows or films that changed us and restaurant that trigger memories of special occasions or celebrations.

Pete Hamill captured what I am trying to say so magnificently in his novel Forever--an homage to love for NYC that takes the form of an epic story about one man who will live forever so long as he never leaves the island of Manhattan.

It may not be for everyone, but I can see where there is a richness...a sweetness... that comes from living in a home that one's family has been in "forever."

Kyle, VERY well-put.

oh the irony of simple kyle...

meanwhile he probably replaced one of these 'generational types' when he moved in form Ohio to purchase his co-op.

"he probably replaced one of these 'generational types' when he moved in form Ohio to purchase his co-op."

And that's part of the rich fabric of New York ...

agreed Matt, just as you've probably done to the 8th generation welfare recipient priced out of your washington heights pad..

absolutely nothing wrong with that..

.. pretty entertaining that those who love these kind of heartfelt/lifetime channel circle jerks are the ones most likely to be pricing these types out.

BRB going to the china workers' protests then off to Barney's 75% off sale.. oh sweet sardonicism, you fly so low

hol4: fwiw, I'm a 4th generation New Yorker. My relatives began their lives in America and NYC as laborers, some learned trades and subsequent generations became small business owners and professionals. Our history extends from the tenements of Hunts Point and Hester Street, on to Gunhill Road and Flatbush, to the UES, Cobble Hill, and GV today.

As for me, I live in a coop apartment previously lived in for about 45 years by a woman who by all accounts of my neighbors who knew her lived a happy, long life before deteriorating health required she move to be cared for by a son. Regardless of the circumstances, I certainly didn't "displace" a soul unless by some strange operation of mind you define "displace" as the forking over hundreds of thousands of dollars to someone. From what I've put together, this woman and her husband lived in the building for a long time when it went coop ages ago. Their modest investment when buying the apartment provided them with a permanent home for decades and a huge profit upon sale that could be used to obtain the care needed to keep the widow comfortable as her physical and mental health deteriorated in her 90s.

I don't understand your point of view as it seems to be just contrarian.

"agreed Matt, just as you've probably done to the 8th generation welfare recipient priced out of your washington heights pad.."

That's just the way of the world ...

I'm a 9th generation NY'er prior to the inception of tenements when my family lived in huts and the LES was fields..

The woman who resided in your co-op was lucky enough to take advantage of modern medicine (but unlucky enough for you to offer said apt to her son at XXX price to make your story all the more lifetime-ish/tearjerker), unlike my predecessors who had to use berries as lube, prior to KY or Eros..

That said, even with my longer family history (though I assume I'm much younger than you), I still find that most of those who live in generational apartments do so not by choice, but due to lack of other options, in how he eloquently put it as 'loserdom.'

That said, I can make a walking tour of the entire west side of the architectural/establishment changes that I've missed of past when I used to bang this dude or that, prior to the inception of Grindr.. so yes, I appreciate your point about your nostalgia/'emotional (or penile) Renaissance' when walking thru a certain block, and remembering abc slut..

..but that bears little correlation to OP's point as there will always be a new breed of bright eyed closeted college interns to make new memories with, which I find more exciting, than those of past, just as your previous family may have up and left out of UES to make new memories at GV...

"That's just the way of the world ..."

agreed, and the way I prefer it..

and being that most of these rent-controlled, people like me, you, or Kyle will most likely make this type of woman in the article extinct.