For eight years, Toni Schlesinger has taken us into New Yorkers' lives and homes in the "Shelter" column of the Village Voice. Last spring, she released the book, Five Flights Up and Other New York Apartment Stories.
Toni Schlesinger's Five Flights Up and Other New York Apartment Stories
The book, broken into 15 sections, is a snapshot of many private lives via homes, similar to "Shelter". The book chronicles people living in New York's extremes, occupying 150-square-foot spaces, paying over half their income for rent, living eight in an apartment, and taking showers in twos to save time. These are people who make movies in their living room and then sleep in it later. They surround themselves with their baby teeth, with 500 volumes of Moby Dick, plaster rabbis, birds' nests, 30 modernist chairs, 50 loaves of Wonder Bread, and more. In Schlesinger's hands, their stories are much more than novelties...
...Each interview is a vivid and insightful portrait, revealing the creative energy, camaraderie, desperation, and hope that fuel the daily lives of people in New York and everywhere.
We came across the book at Powerhouse Books' Powerhouse Arena in DUMBO.
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Is spending more than half your income on rent/mortgage really such an extreme in NYC? With the exception of several years I spent in a rent-controlled studio, I've always paid more than half - sometimes significantly more - for housing, and it seemed pretty typical amongst my friends too.
During my 20s, it boiled down to taking that first paycheck of the month (and in many cases a bite out of the second) for rent, then use the second check for everything else - and then using tax refunds/birthday money from 'rents, etc. to get caught up on credit cards or pay for luxuries like vacations.
Now that I'm older and have a mortgage, housing now eats up that whole first check and close to half of the second with standard tax deductions (freelance income balances it all out). I'm thinking it doesn't work like this in other cities though. . .
view eeeck's profile
It's not uncommon to spend half or more on housing here in St. Louis, especially for young people. It's inexpensive to live here overall, but wages are low too. The cost of owning property in the city and inner 'burbs is far more expensive than renting. The opposite is true in the outer suburbs--owning often costs less than renting. You can buy a lot of house for the money. That is, of course, provided that you don't mind vinyl siding, driving a car everywhere, and neighborhoods with no trees.
view kristenasaurus's profile
eeeck, I'm with you. I spend pretty much exactly half my income on rent here in NYC. It's tough, but its the price we pay for...cramped spaces, walk-ups, slanted floors, rooms that are too small to put a bed in, windows that look directly into someone else's apt, and all the other fun stuff that comes along with living in NYC.
Kristen, I went to college in St. Louis. We definitely didn't pay much for our apt. We weren't downtown, but we were walking distance to Forrest Park. Three of us split $700 rent with a big enough place to hold a pool table and a work-space (in addition to three bedrooms and a comfortable living room).
view munckee's profile
FYI, tax refunds and birthday money are part of your income.
view Michael's profile