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KamaAina (58,511 posts) Thu Feb 26, 2015, 07:24 PM After the panic: How one New Yorker lives happily in 90 square feet https://homes.yahoo.com/news/after-the-panic--how-one-new-yorker-lives-happily-in-90-square-feet-210257460.html "I really like getting rid of things," says Mary Helen Rowell, as she stands in the middle of her minimally furnished apartment in Manhattan's West Village. "It's my favorite thing." Considering that Rowell's apartment measures all of 90 square feet, purging is more of a necessity than a hobby, but enjoying the process makes it easier to keep the tiny space neat. "If there are three things on the floor, it's a disaster." Rowell found the place two years ago through a friend, who saw the listing on NYU's student listserv. "Everyone was laughing at the tiny box that was for rent," says Rowell. Even when she visited, the landlord seemed embarrassed to show it. But the rent was just $750 a month (now a whopping $775), and she took it on the spot. A few moments of panic set in once Rowell started measuring the space. Click here or on a photo for a slideshow with details on how she defeated the panic and learned how to live comfortably and happily in 90 square feet.after which a photograph of the place I've heard of micro-apartments, but this is ridiculous! On the other hand, there was a time that I would have done it to pay $775 in the West Village.
geek tragedy (43,233 posts) Thu Feb 26, 2015, 07:31 PM7. That's not a home, it's a room. They have to share a bathroom with others.
vankuria (610 posts) Thu Feb 26, 2015, 07:42 PM10. And the bathroom is across the hall! No way could I live in that small space, having my clothes hanging in the kitchen, no place to sit but a folding chair and sharing a bathroom with my neighbors, ick. My niece pays $700 a month for an apt. in Upstate NY and has 2 bedrooms, full kitchen, living room, dining room and den. Folks pay outrageous money to live in NYC and I just don't get it.
Warpy (81,371 posts) Thu Feb 26, 2015, 08:48 PM19. That's exactly what it is, since she shares a bathroom which really sucks if there are people sharing it who think their Mommies live there to clean it. Been there, done that, used Clorox to sluice out the tub and escape the cooties. I also note that she mentions paying $25/month for clothing storage, something she'd have to do in NYC which goes from freezing to broiling every single year and that means she's now paying $800/month for that closet. Phooey.
LiberalElite (5,208 posts) Thu Feb 26, 2015, 08:54 PM21. I get claustrophobic just looking at the pics but- I do wonder if it was legal for the apartments to be carved out like that. No brownstone building was originally built containing virtual cells as apartments.
Warpy (81,371 posts) Thu Feb 26, 2015, 09:00 PM23. Yes, it looks like the SROs in Boston, half an original room The last one I lived in (for a very long 5 weeks while I apartment hunted) was like that, but they did manage to stick a 3/4 bath into one end of it, making it barely tolerable. I was absolutely thrilled when I could finally move into an apartment.
hunter (21,172 posts) Thu Feb 26, 2015, 11:33 PM25. Hunter's old kitchen...after which a photograph of a dirty congested kitchen The "range" hasn't got an oven, it's the refrigerator underneath, the place to steal beer from, and the kitchen sink above. Thus the toaster oven, pre-microwave oven days. Nevertheless I've experienced worse, which has never inhibited my meal making. But every cook on earth deserves better, and too many cooks do with much less. after which a photograph of something thunderthighs, the fizzgig primitive, wants on her balcony A rural stove using biomass cakes, fuelwood and trash as cooking fuel. Surveys suggest over 100 million households in India use such stoves (chullahs) every day, 2–3 times a day. It is a major source of air pollution in India. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_issues_in_India
Warpy (81,371 posts) Thu Feb 26, 2015, 08:41 PM17. This is great for the 80 hour a week workaholic or the student with a frenetic social life in the bar scene. It's not so wonderful for people who spend a lot of time at home because they're not paid enough to do anything else. I've spent several months living in a van and several weeks living in a place in Boston that was this tiny. However, i could always see light at the end of the cramped quarters tunnel with the end of a summer job or having people finally move out of an apartment I'd rented. Do note that this person had plenty of money to make the space livable. Most of us who have lived in cramped quarters like this have done so because we've had no money.
hunter (21,172 posts) Thu Feb 26, 2015, 10:39 PM24. My broken car, pushed into a church parking lot was much smaller than that. So was the tiny illegal backyard shed I later moved up to. So was the little room I lived in for $350 a month, back when that was very serious money, with more-and-less a dozen of us hopeless male geeks (and occasionally our hopeless and hapless girlfriends) sharing one decrepit bathroom and one decrepit kitchen, with always a few sketchy roomies who would steal your refrigerated food, especially the beer. I'd learned to live with non-refrigerated food by then, not even counting my childhood experiences with my parents and siblings living in rural back country, no refrigerators, early 1970's Europe. Honestly, I could happily live in a place like that even today in San Francisco, London, Manhattan, Paris, Tokyo and many other big urban areas if there is enough daylight to grow a few herbs, peppers, and tomatoes, and I don't have to worry too much about cops kicking in the door, or worse, anyone else meaning to do me harm.
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Topic: primitives discuss living in 90 square feet apartment (Read 1200 times)
