"From 'Girls' to 'I Love Lucy,' we break down the hovels, the dream pads and everything in between."
I hope you can get into The Washington Post, because this is delightful with diagrams and floor plans. But you might not care if you've never struggled to get housing in NYC. (I have: I've lived in 6 different apartments in NYC.) And you might not care if you haven't watched the relevant shows, especially "Girls" — which is of special concern here because the series is about to end (this Sunday).
April 14, 2017
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18 comments:
I've also noticed how easy it is to find a parking place in Manhattan on these shows. Sure, just pull right up into an empty spot in front of your destination. That happens exactly never in real life.
I'd like to live in Marnie's "shit-box" apartment if, like Ray, I get to bang her from behind.
I am Lasl... no I'm not.
Not at all. Next question.
Sofa in the middle of the room.
Only on TV.
Most people have to make do with a Ralph Kramden-esque sort of apartment.
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Good article. It was worth giving up a freebie for. Anyway, I didn't think Jerry's place was as cheap as the 400/month ones. He was subsidizing the Kramers of the building.
The most unrealistic NYC apartment was Margot Kidder's in Superman. It was not only a penthouse but it had a huge terrace. Eat your heart out Melania. The apartments in Seinfeld and Friends have a fantasy amount of space, but the furnishings are down market and don't give the impression of luxury. In the way that movie stars put on eyeglasses and dowdy clothes and pretend to be plain, so do these luxury apartments pretend to be cheap digs.
> Most people have to make do with a Ralph Kramden-esque sort of apartment.
Door needs more locks. When I lived in New York most apartments had at least three locks on the door.
Bastards omitted Mad Men.
For my 9+ months at NYU I enjoyed Hayden Hall (15th floor) and a murphy bed. Best thing about the small abode was a small fridge someone left and a very small closet - with a window! - which had my study desk. Far from the maddening crowd.
Food wasn't too bad either in 1970-71.
Lazlo would appreciate I sometimes went to another dorm for lunch and met a woman specializing in "plaster casters" - but she didn't get mine.
I knew 4 people who crammed themselves into a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment off Columbus Circle in the 80's. New Yorkers who moved to DC in the '80's couldn't believe what a deal DC was.
When I moved to Wisconsin from DC in the mid-90's, I traded a 1 bedroom condo for a 2 bedroom house with a big yard.
Do you want a fashionable location or space? I got to the age where I wanted space and comfort. And I realized that I was not moving to a place that lacked culture. You just have fewer options. You get one or two art exhibitions to pick from on the weekends, not a dozen. You get two or three good Indian restaurants, not a zillion. There's a play you can go to if you wish. There are not 20. But you can only go to 1 anyway. And if you don't like those options, well, Chicago is not that far away.
And of course, many of the people who live in NY or DC are not running around to the theater or ballet or art museums every weekend either. But they want you to think they are.
"That exhorbitant rent that one has to pay for a few square feet of space near the heart of things," wrote the Nebraskan Willa Cather who was born in Virginia, died in Manhattan, and was buried in New Hampshire.
I knew three 22-yos who moved into a thee-bedroom apartment in the East Village in 2014. Two of the bedrooms had windows, frosted ones, that fronted straight onto the street; the third bedroom had no windows but, instead, a small closet. The "living room" was the size and shape of my kitchen table. The kitchen had a drawer with a dishwasher and a counter about the size of my cutting board. The whole place was between 400 (the city minimum then) and 500 SF. $4,100 a month.
Only people inured to crammed college dorm life could have stood it.
There's a reason young people are flocking to Denver, Pittsburgh and Nashville.
James, there's a Seinfeld episode about that--every now and then you get an awesone parking spot and when you do, you don't want to give it. You'll take other transportation, go out of your way not to drive because it could be years before you see a spot like that again.
How realistic? Un, like...totally!
"Door needs more locks. When I lived in New York most apartments had at least three locks on the door."
I've lived here 36 years (in the same apartment) and have always had only one lock on the door.
"The apartments in Seinfeld...have a fantasy amount of space...."
I've always thought the Seinfeld apartment was reasonably realistic, especially as it is located on the Upper West Side.
The crap-hole that "Lucky Louie" was set in seemed the most realistic of working-class New York.
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