apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Fantastic lighting plan. Love the wall color. What is it?

Stupid question, but I've always been curious.

How does one 'sell' an apartment? Doesn't the term apartment mean rental unit?

Just curious since I see talk of selling apartments when I read NYC sites like this and Craigslist.

It's a condo or a co-op technically, not an apartment.

"apartment" means one habitation in a multiple dwelling unit. They are often individually owned in NYC, as co-ops.

In the NYTimes 'City' section Sunday there was a piece about how the apartment came to be . . . first it was private homes and tenement buildings, then French Flats (denoting a more middle class existence than a tenement implied/allowed . . o here, I'll just paste it in

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Newfangled French Flats

Q. What were "French flats"? I see them mentioned occasionally in descriptions of Victorian New York.

A. Before the Civil War, the expression "apartment building" was virtually unknown. The affluent lived in their own houses, and the working class lived in tenements. In the 1800's, the reconstruction of Paris heightened a fascination among affluent New Yorkers for French Empire fashions and architecture.

The well-to-do French, unlike Americans, had long been used to multiple-family dwellings — think of Versailles as one huge apartment building for Louis XIV and his court.

As explained by Elizabeth Hawes in "New York, New York" (Knopf, 1993), her history of apartment buildings, "French flats" meant "any multiple dwelling that was not conspicuously working-class housing." The term was most appropriate for the new luxury buildings that were modeled after those of Second Empire Paris. The first such building, the Stuyvesant apartments at 142 East 18th Street, was designed by Richard Morris Hunt, who had studied and practiced architecture in Paris. It was demolished in the late 1950's.

"French flats" had a connotation of naughtiness, and the term later became restricted to modest improved tenements. The new affluent living style became much more popular when the term "apartment-building" (often hyphenated) gained common use.

You sell shares in a corporation. So you'd sell say 1000 shares in One Main Street Corp, Inc. Along with the shares buyer received proprietary lease to the apartment 3F or whatever.

Condominium is a form of ownership, not a style of home. A condo may be an apartment, a townhouse, or a duplex. The community I live in has some of each of these.

Some interesting comments here:

http://www.curbed.com/archives/2006/01/26/the_tipping_point_.php

This new feature stinks. I hate looking at apartments I'll never afford.

I don't see this new feature as adding anything worthwile to AT. I could just browse the times real estate section if I want to look at luxory apartmetns- and these people already have a website for their gorgeous apartment, which is going to sell itself. They don't need AT and this doesn't promote the type of creative space design that AT does so well...

Hells yeah, let these turkeys offload their dwellings somewhere else. Like, oh, I dunno, one the innumerable NYC REAL ESTATE blogs?

HELL TO THE NO on this new feature!

I love the FSBO listings here. Don't take them away!

I like the Fizzbow phenom,
and love to look at apts I won't be buying
but
so far both of these have been recycled Curbed columns

I like looking at these--dwellings in the hottest market looking great. Total eye candy, great ideas.

I dig it. Both the FSBO, and the weekly feature.

Keep up the FSBO. I love 'em!

I vote yes for FSBO listings! But I'm biased because I love looking at real estate listings online--and still go to open houses for fun during my lazy weekends in town. (That's actually how I found my current place.)