Burning Down the House

Finding a place and maybe letting go. Maybe.

I seethe with a vibrant rage so bright it rivals Venus’ brilliance in the night sky, I harbor it for my longtime landlord of the first apartment I rented in New York, in a rent-stabilized building on Franklin Street in Greenpoint, then a sleepier, mostly Polish, neighborhood in Brooklyn and now considered one of the most popular places to live, full of condos, yuppies and what is considered one of the best restaurant scenes in the city. The waterfront zoning changed from industrial to residential in May 2005, a few months after I signed the lease in March, offering developers 25 year tax abatements for including a percentage of questionably affordable housing in their skyscraper condos lording over the East River.

I didn’t know anything about rent-stabilized apartments then, I just knew this place was right above the restaurant we were opening. I am no stranger to living above my work—my father, his sisters and parents lived above the family restaurant growing up, my Yia-Yia lived there for decades after her husband’s passing until her death. I lived above the hardware store next door to the restaurant I worked at in college, I’d bribe the Thursday morning barista with Oreos, he was vegan, and who knew, so are Oreos, to turn the flattop on for me and call when the first order came in.

The proximity in Brooklyn allowed me to take showers in-between shifts, essential during that first fretful hot summer, to change socks and shirts to try to feel new again, and spend time with my dog during 80 hour work weeks. I lived with my friend Cari, who did the books and prepped at the restaurant, our two dogs Trinity and Belly and Matilda the 6-toed cat. Rent-stabilized apartments are sometimes called golden handcuffs, and I don’t know how I feel about that phrase, but I understand what it’s getting at. How people can feel trapped by the rent, which is often less than the going rates since stabilization has its own set of rules that generally protects tenants.

The Rent Guidelines Board votes annually on incremental percentages for one and two year leases on stabilized apartments. There are rules for how much the landlord can raise the rent between tenants, and it is extremely difficult to kick someone out. Listen, this Rent Guidelines Board is no impartial thing, sometimes it’s full of people who love to raise rents, like during Eric Adams’ administration.

Still, stabilized apartments offer renters more security than the free market, which, from what I can tell, is a volatile, predatory place. The more I write this, the more I wonder why the market is treated as such a fair entity. I mean, this notion is a large basis of our economic system, rhetoric that supply and demand, a basic foundation of the free market, evens itself out, that it magically regulates itself. It’s such an outdated idea, it’s laughable. Well, almost laughable. We live in such an outdated notion of the market, we exist in the monopoly.

Anyway, I’m not here to talk about economics, I’m here to talk about hating my landlord for an apartment I haven’t lived in for eight years. I still have the lease for it, I lived there for twelve years, to the point where I figured I would live there forever. It was about a thousand dollars under market when I moved out, as more and more little articles popped up about how cool the neighborhood was, the kiss of death, until people realize they’re living in dilapidated apartments off the G, the only train that doesn’t go into Manhattan.

When I moved out, I figured I could sublet it to make some money, that mythological passive income I’ve heard so much about, and still keep the apartment a bargain for someone. I had the strongest ally anyone looking to spread the word, any word, could have—a friend who bartended in the neighborhood. She connected me with enough inquisitive, interested millennials who loved the location and wondered when the lease would be theirs, and when they could meet the landlord? Never, and no. They were all so well-meaning. Do you think places are cheap because the situation is above board? I just wanted to keep the place under market but assist my dismal cook’s income. Once I understood I was becoming part of the problem, trying to make money off of something that wasn’t mine, that I was pricing out the people who needed a place to live because I thought I was entitled to free money. My friend needed a place to live, and just because the market didn’t offer people like us anything we could afford, I didn’t have to be the market. She ended up living there for eight years, until she moved out of the city a few months ago. I discovered that even with a really easy tenant, being a pretend landlord sucks.

It’s a different game now, the way people with money can move through the world, casually living here and there to see if it’s something that suits them, and those of us who hold on dearly to a place. Rent-stabilized apartments are the closest thing to the security that home-ownership offers. For a lot of people, without stabilized rents, they can’t afford to pay bills, raise their families, they have to live further and further away from work and community. The displacement is detrimental, longer commutes, less time with loved ones, less time to rest, less time to play music, paint, read, write, cook, play. People stay in apartments that some landlords don’t take care of, because they know they can afford to live there. Knowing you can pay your bills is a powerful thing, a certainty hard to fuck with.

My landlord in Greenpoint, who owned the building for 26 years, never maintained this four story structure erected in 1928. I should know, I’ve held the lease for over 20 years, a fact that adds a layer of interest to me that is anything but. I loathe my landlord so much I can’t tell if I want to live in this apartment until I die, so I can impede how much money he can make from #2R, or if I never want to see or deal with him and his incompetency ever again. Some people vehemently believe I am to hold onto this lease until you can pry it from my cold dead fingers, and I understand why. Often, when an older landlord dies, the heirs sell the building. This one was bought for $250,000 in 2000 and is now worth over $3 million. I’m supposed to make a new owner buy me out, but to do so I either have to live in this apartment again, which trust me I’ve considered because what is available out there is grim, or sublet it, an act that forces me to act the role of landlord, just to keep the lease, something that takes considerable effort and time, and eventually is illegal. Also, waiting for someone to die must be like staring at a pot of water to boil. Impossible.

None of this matters right now, the building is under a full vacate order from the city after an electrical board fire in early July, meaning no one can legally inhabit the building until the Department of Buildings deems it safe. So far, it has failed two inspections since the fire, and the landlord is dragging his feet renovating it to push out older tenants, like my upstairs neighbors who pay $80 a month in rent, they’ve lived there for so long. Which, good luck, guy. They’re not going anywhere.

Are you a renter? Do you dream? When you do, do you dream of built-ins? During our apartment search, after I gave an impassioned speech to Vince about the importance of living in a rent-stabilized apartment for security as we age since neither of us are fiscal virtuosos, I saw the most beautiful apartment online, the asking rent below my somewhat arbitrary budget. Three French doors, a small room outfitted as a closet, a goddamn closet, and an entire wall of built-ins, shelves and drawers. Dare to dream. Both ends of the apartment were rounded, like a fairytale castle, and a tiny balcony right off the kitchen had comically charming fake grass. During the open house, I placed my open palms on the double porcelain sink in the kitchen and whispered “I hope we get to live together someday soon.”

The owners chose people who offered considerably more¹ than the rent they asked for, they also offered to purchase the pending washer and dryer for the apartment. I imagine they offered $4,000 a month to seal the deal, that’s what word considerable makes me think, and sure I was somewhat disappointed, both with the outcome and that an apartment in Queens so capriciously increased in rent, forever most likely, just because somebody wanted it. The ramifications of their want are greater than just that living in that apartment on Catalpa.

I don’t have ill will for the new tenants of this apartment, I hope they are good stewards of the place. They do have to live above their landlords, who have small children. And the owners of the building, the ones who said yes to more, have to be landlords to people who know they can be bought. Because they have. I’ve let go of my internal dialogue about whether I’d take the money if I owned the building, taking myself to task on a very hypothetical question, would I take the money or the best tenant for a place I don’t own.

We have found an apartment, not on Streeteasy, but through a friend who is moving to look after her mom, a rent-stabilized place that is cared for, both by her and the people who own the building. The difference between care and neglect is a palpable thing. After we didn’t get the beautiful built-ins place, I thought about how we are just not internet real estate people like that, how there is a big portion of the world that is not for us, because it’s not made for people, it’s made for algorithms, it’s made for start-ups, brands, influencers, and optimizers. We’re just people, and we’re lucky to have other people, to have friends, and friends of friends, who think of us when we’re in need. That’s how we do this.

1. To quote the real estate agent.