Architecture The End of Happiness
posted by on October 13 at 9:44 AM
Today is my last day in Stuyvesant Square, Manhattan.
I spent a week in a comfortable, one-bedroom apartment on the seventh floor of a complex. Here, each room is like other rooms; each building is like other buildings; each building is an island in the sun.
A description of Stuyvesant Square in the New York Times:
The Stuyvesant Square neighborhood is in every way unrelated to Stuyvesant Town, the rental complex not far away that recently sold, with its cousin Peter Cooper Village, for $5.4 billion. The rental communities consist of 110 uniform, nondescript brick buildings…Because it is clean, efficient, and unified, Stuyvesant brought me as close as I have ever been to living in an ideal socialist society. Indeed, the complex is something of a socialist theme park for us dreamers and seekers of utopia.
Just because I'm curious, how much is the rent in your socialist utopia?
"The rental communities consist of 110 uniform, nondescript brick buildings…"
And that sounds like my idea of hell. According to this post, socialism is the ultimate in BOR-ING. At least the communists had some bitchin' propaganda art and architecture.
I'm equally confused, if I'm looking at the correct link. Annual? Are those daily prices? Weekly prices? I'm still slightly drunk from last night. Help.
Leave him alone, Lee, let him dream. Me, I know where he's coming from.
According to the NYT article the rents start at $1,800/month for a 2-bedroom without doorman. No mention of studios or 1-bedrooms. Of course that was a year ago. Condos start at a million.
Worker's paradise indeed!
I see now.
That is not a good deal. Just sayin'.
I also just realized I don't know where my wallet is. Holy fuck.
Why do so many Stranger writers seem to hate Seattle?
Charles, love your post. Like you I grew up in a home with several maids, a chauffeur, and a cook. But I'm a marxist/socialist now. I have a cousin who is an attorney who just bought a condo in Stuyvesant. It's a lovely neighborhood, and an example of how great Seattle could be if the racist, Christian Seattle locals would only tear down their single family homes a allow density, socialism and a real city to grow.
Yeah!! Thats what I'm talkin' about. A clean snazzy Über-chic environ, where the posh proletariat can gather with his/her likewise fashionistas and plot the revolution(it never looked sooo good). Power to the Pea-coats.
not gonna be found on SLOG
$1800/mo for a 2-bedroom rental in manhattan is a steal. $1 mil for a condo is a rip off anywhere.
I agree with #11. Two people sharing a clean, comfortable apartment in the heart of New York City for $900 each? Are you kidding? Worth every penny.
My favorite memory about "Sty-Town" were the gigantic piles of trash that form on the small streets around the complex.
Yet again I find that fun and socialism seem incompatible.
Sounds like a theme park all right: a fantasy wold erected and maintained by thousands of unseen others who couldn't afford to live in the world they are paid to build for others, even assuming they would choose to.
I loved living at Stuy Town! Good thing I loved it then, because now I'm broke and I live in Brooklyn.
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