[HN Gopher] She lived in a New York hotel for more than 40 years...
___________________________________________________________________
She lived in a New York hotel for more than 40 years, but her life
was a mystery
Author : wallflower
Score : 130 points
Date : 2023-11-15 10:56 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| blamazon wrote:
| The Hart Island public cemetery, at the end of the article, is a
| morbidly interesting tangent:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hart_Island
| frogpelt wrote:
| You might have seen in the footnote; this article is part of
| series by NPR about people buried on Hart Island.
| colonwqbang wrote:
| I wonder how a rent-stabilised hotel room works and how they came
| to be. Maybe it's obvious to an American person what it means?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I did find this wiki page on rent regulation in NY, it mentions
| something about rent control and living continuously in a place
| since a certain cutoff date:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_regulation_in_New_York
|
| edit:
|
| > Rent stabilization sets maximum rates for annual rent
| increases and, as with rent control, entitles tenants to
| receive required services from their landlords along with lease
| renewals. The rent guidelines board meets every year to
| determine how much the landlord can charge. Violations may
| cause a tenant's rent to be lowered.
|
| Basically a cap on rent increases, looks like.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > I did find this wiki page on rent regulation in NY, it
| mentions something about rent control and living continuously
| in a place since a certain cutoff date:
|
| That's rent _control_ , not rent stabilization. There is no
| cutoff date for rent stabilization. Different units became
| stabilized for a variety of different reasons over the years.
| toothrot wrote:
| The article briefly mentions the definition, but not in detail.
| They're part of Single Room Occupancy (SRO) programs for
| affordable housing in big cities. SROs have fallen out of favor
| with no good alternative, but they've been a lifeline for
| friends of mine.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy
| blamazon wrote:
| A little known fact is that hotels constructed in New York
| City "before July 1, 1969 which cost less than $88 per week
| or $350 per month on May 31, 1968" are subject to a law that
| states that guests are entitled to become a permanent tenant
| by requesting a lease of six months or more, and hotels are
| generally barred from preventing such people from doing such
| that.
|
| There's someone who has been trying to claim ownership
| through this mechanism of the New Yorker hotel across from
| Penn Station, with surprising amounts of success:
|
| https://viewfromthewing.com/new-york-city-transfers-hotel-
| de...
| Arrath wrote:
| What a wild read.
| tecleandor wrote:
| Well, and I see the owner of that hotel is the
| Unification Church (a.k.a. "The Moonies"). Now that's
| another wild read if you have some time to kill.
|
| One son of the founder is the owner of Kahr Arms (the
| arms manufacturer), and cofounded with his brother the
| "Rod of Iron Ministries", a weird gun centered church
| where they do AR-15 rituals and stuff...
|
| Both churches are involved in heavy lgtb hate, anti
| communism (although seems like they sent some money to
| North Korea in the 90s) and some other stuff...
| rafram wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > At one time, there were many affordable places where a single
| person like Hasegawa could live in New York City. Many hotels
| offered accommodations consisting of a single bed in a cubicle,
| or a private room with a shared kitchen and bathroom.
|
| > In the mid-20th century there were close to 200,000 units
| designated as SROs -- single room occupancy. But by the 1970s,
| they had gained a reputation as hotbeds for criminal activity
| and the city began to shut them down.
|
| So it was common at that time for hotels to offer long-term
| apartment rentals, but no longer.
| morkalork wrote:
| It's kind of maddening that cities cracked down on SROs
| because of crime and then complain about all the homeless
| people and crime they have on the streets. What did they
| think was going to happen? That residents were going to move
| into proper apartments? They probably would have already if
| they could, so now the problems are worse as a result.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| puts em on the street and now they're someone else's
| problem. a lot of them would then filter out to other
| areas, generally warmer ones, or areas that were easy to
| police.
|
| these measures are, on a long scale, what drove a lot of
| homeless and almost-homeless to the south and west. NYC
| winters will kill you, but it's not hard to scrounge up a
| bus ticket to SC
| Someone wrote:
| > it's not hard to scrounge up a bus ticket to SC
|
| From NYC, you don't need to pay for a ticket. https://en.
| wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_homeless_relocation_pr...:
|
| _"For several decades, various cities and towns in the
| United States have adopted relocation programs offering
| homeless people one-way tickets to move elsewhere. Also
| referred to as "Greyhound therapy", "bus ticket therapy"
| and "homeless dumping", the practice was historically
| associated with small towns and rural counties, which had
| no shelters or other services, sending homeless
| individuals tickets to the nearest large city. More
| recently, a nationwide investigation by The Guardian in
| 2017 found that many homeless relocation programs are
| offered by cities with high median incomes, helping
| people move to places with cheaper housing and a lower
| cost of living, but also fewer economic opportunities.
| While some individuals welcome assistance to help them
| relocate, others say that they have felt "targeted" and
| forced to move, under the threat of arrest by police."_
|
| That Guardian article says
| (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-
| interactive/2017/dec/...):
|
| _"New York appears to have been the first major city to
| begin a relocation program for homeless people, back in
| 1987. After the current iteration of the program was
| relaunched during the tenure of mayor Michael Bloomberg,
| it ballooned, and its relocation scheme is now far larger
| than any other in the nation. The city homelessness
| department budgets $500,000 for it annually.
|
| Almost half the approximately 34,000 journeys analyzed by
| the Guardian originate from New York. In contrast with
| other relocation initiatives, New York is notable for
| moving large numbers of families, like the Ortizes."_
| mattficke wrote:
| NYC used to have a lot of Single Room Occupancy (SRO)
| residential hotels that functioned more like cheap apartments.
| Rent stabilization applies to buildings built before 1974 and
| kicks in for residents once they've been in a place for 6
| months. Years ago the city changed the zoning laws to restrict
| SROs so there aren't nearly as many as there were in the 80's
| but a few have stuck around.
| mapmeld wrote:
| Everyone has kinda answered your question about these old
| practices carrying over. We're seeing the end of the last
| surviving hotel residents - recently NYT covered the eviction
| of an 82-year-old, who took over a contract from his aunt
| https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/08/nyregion/stewart-hotel-lo...
|
| Nikola Tesla famously died in his residential room at the New
| Yorker Hotel, and I recently learned that after his presidency,
| Herbert Hoover lived at the Waldolf Astoria for 30 years.
| krmbzds wrote:
| https://archive.is/bP3K7
| jcrites wrote:
| For what it's worth, I had never heard of a rent-stabilized
| hotel room either. (American) From some other comments here, it
| sounds like the accommodations were more of an apartment than a
| hotel room.
| pyrophane wrote:
| One of the less talked about aspects of rent stabilized
| apartments is how people become trapped in them.
|
| I know people who have been living in rent stabilized apartments
| in NYC for decades who will never let them go, even though they
| no longer like the neighborhood or the unit.
|
| Of course, it is hard to feel sorry for someone living in a
| $1,200/mo 1-bedroom in a nice area in Manhattan.
| otoburb wrote:
| >> _Of course, it is hard to feel sorry for someone living in a
| $1,200 /mo 1-bedroom in a nice area in Manhattan._
|
| Right -- that's not a trap; it's a choice.
| porkbeer wrote:
| But what choice could compete with that? It's a hell of a
| decision to relinquish such a situatuon.
| jeffbee wrote:
| But by this definition any situation that is optimal is "a
| trap".
| huytersd wrote:
| Well it has to be optimal and irreplaceable.
| all2 wrote:
| In a way, yes. I suppose it depends on what you optimize
| for.
| huytersd wrote:
| I'm guessing you can't Airbnb them?
| kristjansson wrote:
| No, government doesn't really love it when you profit off
| welfare programs.
| huytersd wrote:
| What about having other extended family members live
| there? Or does it have to be the specific people on the
| original lease.
| yardie wrote:
| I feel the same for people with near 0% interest rate
| mortgages. Like we bought a starter home prior to the pandemic.
| Buying the same home now would be 3.5x the monthly mortgage
| payment. Buying a slightly nicer, 1 extra bedroom near our
| neighborhood is completely out of the question. Since no one
| wants to move because rates are so high it creates a vicious
| loop of more buyers than inventory on sale.
| midasuni wrote:
| Can you not port mortgages in America? I have 4 years left on
| my mortgage, if I want to move though I can simply sell this
| place, buy somewhere new, and phone up my mortgage company
| and take the debt with me - as long as the new place is about
| the same or more than the current place (so the LTV stays the
| same or better).
| ghaff wrote:
| Not typically AFAIK. The mortgage is secured by a specific
| piece of property which has been inspected, title-searched,
| etc. It's not a random unsecured loan. It's also the case
| in the US that you can generally just pay off the loan any
| time you want.
| warriormonk5 wrote:
| Generically speaking no.
|
| There's some exceptions, USDA, VA, and FHA loans. All
| government programs. But it's tied to the property so only
| transferable to the purchaser. Very rare here even now with
| rates changing so much.
| toast0 wrote:
| No, mortgage portability is not a thing in the US, at all.
| Mortgages are tied to the property and the borrowers. I've
| never heard of a (US) borrower being able to sell their
| property and keep the loan. Alternatively, it is sometimes
| possible for a new borrower to assume the previous
| mortgage, but it's up to lender discretion, and seems
| unlikely if a current mortgage would be at a dramatically
| higher rate.
|
| What does seem to happen often is that an owner who wants
| to move but doesn't want to lose their nice rate will move
| and then rent our their old place, or at least try to, it
| can be difficult to qualify for a new mortgage while
| carrying the old mortgage and not having a history of rent
| payments.
| anjel wrote:
| Assumable mortgages were a (common) thing until the low
| interest mortgage Era. But they are (again) a thing and
| in-fact add premium value to the selling price of a home
| if your mortgage happens to have the feature along with a
| low interest rate. VA mortgages are the convenient
| example for this but there are other types of assumable
| residential notes as well.
| https://therealdeal.com/national/2023/06/12/assumable-
| mortga...
| yardie wrote:
| For a conventional fixed rate mortgage it's highly
| unlikely.
|
| ARM, 5/1 may be assumable depending on terms.
| woobar wrote:
| Is your mortgage rate fixed rate or the rate is updated
| often?
| orangecat wrote:
| Matt Levine wrote about this recently. In theory there's a
| win-win trade where you should be able to buy out your 3%
| mortgage at a discount (or equivalently, pay it off and get
| a mortgage on a new place at a slightly higher rate). In
| practice, banks won't do this because they figure you're
| bluffing and will eventually move anyway.
| salamandersss wrote:
| Yep. It's using the fed to reallocate money from the inflated
| cash based poor to the credit rich home owner. Home owners
| are basically using government induced negative real interest
| rates to regressively tax non-homeowners.
|
| We got blown away by the pandemic that locked up the housing
| stock. So I cheated and built my own house for like 1/4 the
| cost it is on the market as it's almost all markup from the
| opportunity cost of losing the 0% loan.
|
| For those that have lost hope seriously consider a prefab for
| like 60k dropped on some vacant land. Where I live you don't
| even need inspections or license to do it yourself. But you
| need to develop the land yourself, and not hire out a GC,
| because developers will always be chasing high margin luxury
| builds rather than the low margin methods I've discovered for
| economical housing.
| tiahura wrote:
| Are you actually trying to make the case that high interest
| rates are good for poor folks?
| salamandersss wrote:
| I was not intending to make that case. Negative real
| interest in our real life reality where the better off
| have better access to credit nearly certainly hurts cash
| based poor by making homes etc cost less in real terms to
| the rich at the expense of inflating the poor.
|
| Basically the poor have worse access to credit than other
| groups so when interest goes negative in real terms the
| poor pay for it.
| geraldwhen wrote:
| Higher rates mean more stable or possibly even lower house
| prices. This is good for cash buyers, at least.
|
| For those of us here, that's probably well within reason in
| most of the country where you can buy a house for <$600k
| grecy wrote:
| > _Higher rates mean more stable or possibly even lower
| house prices_
|
| Sure the price of the houses has gone down, but higher
| interest rates mean my monthlies are higher than they were,
| which means I can't afford a house!
| user3939382 wrote:
| My friend has a rent controlled -- huge LR, kitchen, dining
| room, 2 hallways, 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, 18 foot ceilings, in low
| 80s upper east side. $500/month. I think his neighbor's rent is
| like $6500. Yeah he's not leaving.
| bmitc wrote:
| Living the high life, literally in terms of the ceilings.
| Having ceilings like that is so mind-blowing in a living
| space, as it opens everything up drastically. That is an
| _insane_ rent. From the description, the size is great. What
| is the condition and quality of the place? And I 'm not all
| that familiar with New York's neighborhoods. Is low 80s upper
| east side a good neighborhood?
| OfSanguineFire wrote:
| High ceilings mean flats also take a lot more energy to
| heat in winter. If heating were out of my own pocket, I
| might pass on a flat with high ceilings even if rent were
| attractively low. Do NYC blocks like the GP describes
| typically include heating in the rent?
| FFP999 wrote:
| Probably more like, if you can afford the rent on a place
| like this, you're in a position where you don't even
| notice the heating bill.
| kortilla wrote:
| $6000/mo lower. Do you realize how much heat that buys?
| mdhen wrote:
| yes, old buildings will have central radiator heating and
| the heat is free. Very high probability the apartment in
| question has this.
| FFP999 wrote:
| > Is low 80s upper east side a good neighborhood?
|
| It's what most people would consider so, yes. It's an
| upper-middle-class area, clean and safe, if more than a
| little stuffy and uptight.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > t's an upper-middle-class area
|
| That's an understatement. It's consistently one of the
| wealthiest, if not the wealthiest (depending on the year)
| locations in the entire country.
| FFP999 wrote:
| It's wealthy, but not anywhere near the wealthiest area
| in the country, or even in Manhattan.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > It's wealthy, but not anywhere near the wealthiest area
| in the country, or even in Manhattan.
|
| It is, depending on the year, how you measure it, and
| what you consider "Upper East Side". That last part is
| important: the UES has three main subneighborhoods with
| very different demographics and characteristics. It's
| also adjacent to East Harlem, which is historically _not_
| wealthy and brings the mean /median down for any measure
| that includes part of it.
|
| For example, here the Upper East Side is listed as the
| wealthiest neighborhood in the entire city, all five
| boroughs: https://ny.curbed.com/2017/6/27/15881706/nyc-
| richest-neighbo.... This is using household income, which
| is one measure. Alternate measures include median rent
| (skewed due to rent regulations), net worth, property
| values, etc.
|
| Point is: calling the upper east side an "upper middle
| class" area is an understatement. If it's not a wealthy
| neighborhood, then nowhere is.
| busterarm wrote:
| Bethesda, MD and the surrounding areas, please stand up.
| sethhochberg wrote:
| The averages skew things a bit here. Yes, many of the
| wealthiest people in the world live in the UES, but in
| between those single-family mansions and full service
| buildings full of quiet billionaires on the park, there
| are plenty of unremarkable apartments occupied by white-
| collar families. Its a more affordable neighborhood to
| rent in than some other family-oriented parts of
| Manhattan.
| frakkingcylons wrote:
| The people living on 5th, Park , and Madison may be. The
| people that live east of that are middle class.
| Rietty wrote:
| It's one of the wealthier neighbourhoods afaik, so
| apparently it's pretty nice. I think 'low 80s' means when
| they started renting there.
| FFP999 wrote:
| "Early 80s" would refer to the year. "Lower 80s" in
| Manhattan means they live somewhere in the area bounded
| to the south by 80th Street and to the north by 85th
| Street--which includes part of the Upper East Side.
| ghaff wrote:
| >Is low 80s upper east side a good neighborhood?
|
| Yes. That's basically east of Central Park at the southern
| end of museum mile. So, generally, a _very_ good (if
| somewhat sleepy) neighborhood.
| j5r5myk wrote:
| I know you are asking genuinely but to a New Yorker it
| sounds like you're making a joke. A few from facts from
| Wikipedia [1].
|
| "It has long been the most affluent neighborhood in New
| York City."
|
| "The Upper East Side maintains the highest pricing per
| square foot in the United States."
|
| "Four of the top five ZIP Codes in the nation for political
| contributions are in Manhattan. The top ZIP Code, 10021, is
| on the Upper East Side and generated the most money for the
| 2004 presidential campaigns of both George W. Bush and John
| Kerry."
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_East_Side
| bmitc wrote:
| I figured, but my perception of Manhattan is that
| neighborhoods can change drastically from one street
| block to the next, so while I know the upper east side is
| generally, well, upper, I wasn't confident in the exact
| location. Also, I was just flat out lazy and didn't
| bother looking up the street numbers on a map, where I
| would have realized the proximity to Central Park.
| ghaff wrote:
| Aside from a few historically sleazy streets/areas in the
| past, I don't really associate those sorts of sharp
| boundaries with Manhattan nearly as much as I do some
| other cities, especially in the South. (Though, for
| obvious reasons, apartment buildings/condos across from
| Central Park tend to be higher-end than those east of
| there.)
| busterarm wrote:
| Those low-80s UES buildings are mostly walkups or have the
| worlds worst/slowest/broken-est elevators.
|
| Also it's a miserable part of the city to live in.
| codedokode wrote:
| He could rent out extra bedrooms and hallways at market price
| and get rich doing nothing?
| chubot wrote:
| I briefly lived in Manhattan, and I think my neighbor across
| the hall was in such a unique situation.
|
| The building was an old one in the center of Manhattan, but
| newly renovated. I moved in in 2021, and I think everybody had
| moved in within the last 5 years. There were a bunch of young
| professionals that had graduated from NYU and such.
|
| But this guy was the only one without the iPhone electronic
| lock on his door -- and good for him, the iPhone locks are a
| reason why I moved out of the building! (Unsurprisingly, the
| locks once malfunctioned and we were locked out of the
| building. Computers make everything work very poorly these
| days.)
|
| Anyway, I chatted with him in the elevator, and once asked when
| he moved in. I believe he said 1989 -- anyway, it was like 3
| decades.
|
| He didn't look to be more than 40, so I guess he must have
| lived there as a child, and inherited the apartment.
|
| Also, whenever I talked to him, he would say something super
| political without prompting, like "Adams is fucking slob, under
| Giuliani we had law and order" or something.
|
| (Also, he was black, which may break your mental image a bit.)
| pyrophane wrote:
| Yeah, that all sounds about right!
|
| A bit of an aside because it sounds like he really did live
| there full-time, but another reason why people in RS units
| wouldn't want an phone-enabled lock on their door is it
| possibly gives the landlord information on how often they
| come and go.
|
| Some people who have units like that live somewhere else but
| just can't bring themselves to let the things go, so they use
| them as storage and go by once a week to check the mail.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| That would kind of suck too, wouldn't it? Like constantly
| being paranoid about the landlord up to some shenanigans to
| get your ass out?
| the_doctah wrote:
| What do his race and/or political leanings have to do with
| it?
| rpeden wrote:
| I lived in a nice apartment building in Toronto from 2015-2020.
| One couple in the building had lived in the same rent-
| stabilized apartment there since 1967.
|
| On the bright side, it was a well-maintained building in a good
| neighborhood, so they had reasons to enjoy it being just the
| price.
| cantSpellSober wrote:
| Do you mean rent _stablized_ specifically vs _controlled_?
|
| About 1% of NYC apartments are rent controlled, about 50% are
| rent stabilized.
|
| In _controlled_ units you _might_ see a minor increase over
| time, but generally you 're paying what the unit was priced at
| 50 years ago. Leaving typically means an increase in rent of
| 500-700%, and these are practically impossible for new tenants
| to get.
|
| In _stablized_ units the rent can only be increased by a
| percentage determined by a board, typically 2-3% a year.
| busterarm wrote:
| Former rent-controlled apartment dweller here.
|
| That's not true.
|
| Stabilized units can increase something like 4% a year, up
| until they hit the threshold that takes them out of
| stabilization.
|
| Controlled units can increase 2% every two years and
| historically did not do so from the 90s until a few years ago
| where increases have been happening and the housing board has
| advocated on behalf of landlords for additional/emergency
| increases.
|
| Rent increases can happen completely separate from this
| process through building improvements and from the late 80s
| through to the early 2000s, my landlord managed to add $700
| onto our controlled rent through really shady/shoddy/fake
| building improvements.
|
| Growing up about 80% of the units in the building were rent-
| controlled and when I left there was was only 1 controlled
| unit left after mine. Nobody in my family, even though they
| all still live in NYC, wanted to take over the apartment.
|
| Most controlled apartment renters die and have nobody
| eligible to take them over (an immediate family member has to
| cohabitate for like 2 years with the renter). The number
| remaining across all of NYC is exceedingly small, like under
| 15000. There are ~4 million housing units in NYC. Rent-
| controlled apartments are true unicorns. But close to 75% are
| stabilized.
|
| They would do shit like slap a coat of primer on the hallways
| and add $50/mo in permanent rent to everyone's bill (90 unit
| building).
| busterarm wrote:
| I had a rent controlled apartment in Midtown for ~$1300/mo.
| It's the apartment I grew up in and I finally got fed up and
| left two years ago.
|
| The landlord put giant holes in my floor to get access to some
| pipes and wouldn't fix them for over a year.
|
| After leaving the landlord tried to bill tens of thousands of
| dollars to bring the apartment up to their current standards --
| even though we'd been in there since 1970 and the landlord
| never spent a cent on modernizing the apartment along the way.
| 100% of the renovations and upgrades we did ourselves. The
| apartment was left in great condition.
|
| I completely agree with you that it's a trap. The place made me
| completely miserable and even though at the end I finally
| earned decent money to leave, I chose to leave the city
| entirely.
|
| Best decision of my life.
| pmarreck wrote:
| > rent controlled apartment in Midtown for ~$1300/mo
|
| > landlord tried to bill tens of thousands of dollars to
| bring the apartment up to their current standards
|
| > landlord never spent a cent on modernizing the apartment
| along the way
|
| Surely you see that these are directly connected. With an
| increasing cost of living and a legally fixed profitability
| per month that isn't going up over time nor keeping up with
| inflation, from the landlord's perspective, there's little to
| no incentive for them to fork over cash they never got from
| the apartment to put back into it. At that point the only
| incentive is to hold onto the property itself and wait for
| its value to increase while deducting depreciation, and
| perversely, they are incentivized to make you as
| uncomfortable as possible since they cannot raise the rent on
| the unit until you move.
|
| It's my opinion that if we want rent control, there should be
| a cap on the amount of time that ends sooner than "on death",
| especially if you're not old. (For old people who are
| basically living in the last unit of their lives, it makes
| sense to me to rent-control those).
| hoseja wrote:
| Sure. But also Land Value Tax.
| busterarm wrote:
| > Surely you see that these are directly connected. With an
| increasing cost of living and a legally fixed profitability
| per month that isn't going up over time nor keeping up with
| inflation, from the landlord's perspective, there's little
| to no incentive for them to fork over cash they never got
| from the apartment to put back into it. At that point the
| only incentive is to hold onto the property itself and wait
| for its value to increase while deducting depreciation, and
| perversely, they are incentivized to make you as
| uncomfortable as possible since they cannot raise the rent
| on the unit until you move.
|
| Sure and we also stayed and maintained the building and the
| landlord's property through the 70s and 80s when New York
| was a cess pit. My neighborhood was famous for petty crime
| and was full of pimps, street hookers, bums and scammers --
| New York was half empty compared to now.
|
| My landlord still had their property because of tenants
| like us who stayed when life in NY was grim. I was just
| around the corner from a building famous for the landlord
| trying to burn the tenants out (The Windermere).
|
| Also what the landlord was doing by not completing the
| repair was illegal. Fineable. Slumlordish. Having a 2'
| round, 1' deep hole in the doorway of my bathroom floor is
| a massive safety issue. You're saying my landlord shouldn't
| be required to repair it because of incentive? If I fell in
| their hole and hit my head on the toilet and died, they
| would have a multi-million dollar liability on their hands.
| vkou wrote:
| I think most people 'trapped' in a rent-stabilized apartment
| would prefer it to homelessness.
|
| I understand this may make the neighbours feel jealous, but
| hey, I'm jealous of my neighbour who bought his house for 1/3rd
| of what I paid for mine... Life's not fair.
| trollied wrote:
| Having worked in consulting & travelled for 95% of the time, I
| would not wish living in a hotel on anyone. I think my friends
| thought my life was glamorous flying all the time & going to
| different places.
|
| Nope.
| ghaff wrote:
| My travel maxed out at about 50% at peak. But that's traveling
| to generally interesting places and almost never for more than
| about three weeks at a time. I was mostly fine with that but
| always had a home base to return to.
| OfSanguineFire wrote:
| Hotels that allow one to live there permanently, accord what is
| essentially a private apartment, albeit often with the
| possibility of convenient meals and housekeeping. In terms of
| the ability to settle in and feel homey, is not very different
| from renting some flat from a landlord.
| jareklupinski wrote:
| > essentially a private apartment, albeit often with the
| possibility of convenient meals and housekeeping
|
| i think it would be interesting to see more places lean into
| this. personally, I would gladly give up my apartment's
| kitchen in exchange for a staffed central building kitchen
|
| the chefs there are probably better cooks than me anyway
| ghaff wrote:
| I would find eating out all the time to get very old. Even
| a stovetop and refrigerator would help a lot. I'm fine when
| I'm traveling--though I like a refrigerator--but I have the
| advantage of knowing it's not an open-ended thing.
| ska wrote:
| Lots of these sort of rooms have a kitchenette, with at
| least a cooktop and small fridge. At least the more
| modern versions The are bigger also, and sometimes suites
| (e.g. a separated bedroom).
|
| I think some of the older ones had shared kitchens, more
| like a dorm setup.
| solatic wrote:
| The central dining rooms in such places are more like
| college, corporate, or hospital cafeterias, there's
| usually healthier options available and the focus is
| decidedly tilted towards cost-savings vs. offerings that
| compete with high-end restaurants.
|
| I'd dare say most people are better off eating from such
| a cafeteria for 80-90% of their meals, so long as they
| have the option 10-20% of the time to go out and get
| something different to switch things up.
| bmitc wrote:
| Aren't those negatives mainly due to the transient nature of
| traveling? This particular hotel seems quite nice, and when I'm
| in an area for a long time, I don't particularly mind being in
| a hotel, especially if that hotel has good food.
|
| It is my understanding, especially in New York, that it was not
| uncommon for people to have residency in hotels in the early
| 1900s. I've always found that a bit interesting. Even today, I
| know there are some condos you can buy in upscale hotels, where
| you have access to the amenities, such as the restaurant,
| laundry, and cleaning services.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > Aren't those negatives mainly due to the transient nature
| of traveling?
|
| Nope. It's stuff like:
|
| Lack of space. Think how much smaller your hotel room is
| compared to an apartment. You want to buy your own TV, with a
| sound system, and do an Arduino project? No space.
|
| Poor sound proofing: Lots of noise from neighbors.
|
| No kitchen: It's fine if you're gone for a few days, but if
| you're in one for a month, you likely will need to cook
| something. Most people can't afford to eat out all the time
| (and it's not healthy to do so).
|
| I recall once while in school, there was a new fancy
| apartment complex being built that students had signed a
| lease for. Unfortunately, there were delays so the company
| set them up in a hotel for 2 months till the apartment was
| ready. These are all the complaints those students had about
| the hotel experience. Nice in the beginning, but not a good
| long term solution.
| salamandersss wrote:
| An electric range for $60 goes a long way. Hell when I was
| homeless I used a portable gas stove that even works on
| siphoned gasoline, and packs up in a bag about the diameter
| of a cellphone wide, hardly ever needed to eat out.
| thfuran wrote:
| And where are you going to store cookware and tableware
| and spices and other ingredients in a hotel room? Some
| suites or longstay rooms are better equiped for it, but
| regular hotel rooms just aren't designed for long-term
| residence.
| OfSanguineFire wrote:
| People have lived in e.g. bedsits in the UK for years and
| still managed to store enough utensils and spices for
| their own use. There are even vandwellers and overlanders
| who are gourmets and pleasurably cook in the space they
| have.
|
| When I visit the US I am always struck by how much stuff
| people own there, and a lot of that is kitchen stuff
| specifically. But most of the world -- including many
| other developed countries -- make do with less and don't
| necessarily even think about it.
| Qwertious wrote:
| Camping equipment is designed to be compact and fit in a
| backpack, all of this stuff was figured out by the 1930s
| traveling workers who were known as _hobos_.
|
| You don't need a large variety of spices, and spices are
| compact as heck.
|
| If you're going to cook, you can buy same-day or even a
| few days' worth of food.
| thfuran wrote:
| >all of this stuff was figured out by the 1930s traveling
| workers who were known as hobos.
|
| It may surprise you to learn that most people want a
| quality of life exceeding that of a hobo.
| ghaff wrote:
| You really do want at least a kitchenette for any real
| length of time. I'm pretty good with just a refrigerator--
| assuming decent eat out and takeout options--for a few
| weeks but probably wouldn't want to go much longer than
| that. A hotel room doesn't have a lot of space but then a
| furnished studio apartment won't either.
|
| It also helps if you know you'll be back in your house in a
| month or even two--and you're fine with just not doing some
| activities/hobbies while you travel.
| woobar wrote:
| What are you comparing to? Even chain extended stay hotels
| have affordable suites that are similar to a typical
| apartment outside of the USA. From a studio [1] to a 2bdr
| [2]. If you have money you can go for something flashier,
| like MGM Signature in LV [3]
|
| [1] https://www.extendedstayamerica.com/hotels/il/chicago/w
| estmo...
|
| [2] https://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/mspeihw-homewood-
| suites-edi...
|
| [3] https://signaturemgmgrand.mgmresorts.com/en/hotel/one-
| bedroo...
| Izkata wrote:
| I don't think I've seen hotel rooms like that before.
| Just one or two beds in the main room and a bathroom,
| with a mini fridge and maybe a microwave, but no kitchen
| - for example: https://www.marriott.com/en-
| us/hotels/chisr-renaissance-chic...
| BeetleB wrote:
| Those are extended stay places. Costs more and may not be
| an option for the funder. For sure the apartment complex
| didn't pay for that type of a suite.
|
| Oh and of course the folks still had to pay their rent
| those months. It seems like a nice deal because the
| monthly rates for those rooms are a lot more than the
| rent they paid but in reality they're getting less than
| what they paid for.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| Ha. We clearly stay in different hotels and live in
| different kinds of apartments. I find most hotels I've ever
| been in to be quieter and often nearly as spacious as any
| apartment I've ever lived in.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Definitely different kinds of apartments. The 1 bedrooms
| I've lived in are at least 600 sq ft.
| jen20 wrote:
| That was not uncommon in most older American cities. Kansas
| City for example has a number of former residential hotels,
| as does New Orleans.
|
| It's not like these were a Holiday Inn or something!
|
| The difference with modern hotel residences is that they tend
| to have a full kitchen etc, and be more of a condo building
| with a hotel at the bottom (usually).
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Yeah, this is more like living in a studio apartment and less
| like living in a hotel as one might generally picture it.
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| I was a road warrior back in the day... if I were going to be
| in a place for an extended stay - say a month or more - I'd
| look into furnished corporate housing. Likely more space and
| better amenities, possibly even cheaper than an extended
| hotel stay. A step down from that, the "extended stay" hotels
| with a kitchenette and more space aren't terrible apart from
| the often frat-like atmosphere.
|
| My trips were always the Sunday night out, Thursday night
| home type, where probably the biggest issue is the
| disorientation. One Courtyard Marriott looks just like
| another, even across countries. Rental cars quickly lose any
| excitement. Stuck in some suburban office park with your
| choice of Chilibees or Ruby Garden? You can see where
| nutrition quickly drops to zero if you aren't really
| cognizant. And then there's the relationship part. If I'd
| been single it might have been awesome, but I had little kids
| at home and it was a tough few years for what in hindsight
| was limited financial and career gain. Glad we live in an era
| where more of the work can be done remotely.
| ghaff wrote:
| The pandemic did a cold turkey number on my travel. I'm
| back to doing some but I'm being much more selective and
| I'm also trying to plan things so that I spend a smaller
| percentage of my travel time dealing with airports and air
| travel.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| I'm a consultant and have brought travel down from 4 days a
| week to 3 days every other week.
|
| I do prefer to be home. But let's not deny that going to a high
| end hotel in a top tier city is glamorous.
|
| If the breakfast is expensive but you get it for free, it's
| going to be a very nice experience
| otteromkram wrote:
| I hotel hopped (ie - changed hotels every couple of weeks) for
| most of 2022 around DFW.
|
| Space considerations aside, the worst part is the noise. From
| hearing people next door due to thin walls, to people stomping
| around above you, to housekeepers letting each and every door
| they open slam shut, and more, the best takeaway I had was that
| if I rented an apartment and it was noisy, escaping to a hotel
| would not be the right solution.
|
| However, I will 100% recommend booking a hotel over using a
| vacation rental website (I'm not going to name names to stem
| aby free advertising).
| ghaff wrote:
| One concern I have with an extended vacation rental is it
| seems like something of a dice roll if you don't have prior
| experience with a property. If a hotel stay isn't great,
| that's probably OK since it will probably only be for a week
| or less. A one to two month vacation property rental feels
| like a much bigger gamble.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| They're a few things different here. She lived in what we today
| would call an apartment hotel. She had an actual kitchenette,
| not just a kettle. She didn't move every few days.
|
| I've lived in apartment hotels for 1-2 months at a time for the
| past 6 month and it can be quite addictive coming home to a
| well made bed.
| skyyler wrote:
| >it can be quite addictive coming home to a well made bed
|
| Learning to make your own bed like that couldn't take more
| than a few hours... Treat yourself.
| scotty79 wrote:
| > I've lived in apartment hotels for 1-2 months at a time for
| the past 6 month and it can be quite addictive coming home to
| a well made bed.
|
| Not to mention self-cleaning bathroom.
| FalconSensei wrote:
| That's the one thing I really want
| Gud wrote:
| YMMV. I travel >95% of the time and love it. I think it depends
| on how long you're staying and how much freedom you have in
| booking your accommodation and travel.
|
| I avoid hotels and almost always rent an apartment.
| grapescheesee wrote:
| Over 800 days in hotel in the past three years. Its a rather
| difficult life, and hard to explain how it impacts you.
|
| Time difference, doctor/dental visits, mail, family, and work
| life balance are brutal.
|
| Getting a call when your partner totals a car, and ends up
| having one of their worst days, and just needs a physical
| person to see and comfort them really makes it seem pointless.
| Life happens and its hard enough when you're able to return
| home everyday.
| ghaff wrote:
| Even if you generally like travel, beyond a certain
| threshold, you lose contact with people/local activities and
| there are a lot of logistical challenges to either not having
| a home base or maintaining one that you do have--especially a
| house. I maxed out at about 150 days a year and that was a
| lot.
| yardie wrote:
| One of my grand-uncles lived in the Park Plaza Hotel. He was a
| widower, a WWII vet, and loved the city. I was a kid at the time
| so assumed his lifestyle was closer to "The Suite Life of Zack
| and Cody" and didn't know what an SRO was. I assumed he was able
| to afford it on his Army pension, LOL!
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| So there aren't any details? How did she make money?
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| Hart Island (where the occupant was buried) has an interesting
| history:
|
| "The remains of more than one million people are buried on Hart
| Island, though since the first decade of the 21st century, there
| are fewer than 1,500 burials a year. Burials on Hart Island
| include individuals who were not claimed by their families or did
| not have private funerals; the homeless and the indigent; and
| mass burials of disease victims."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hart_Island
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hart+Island/
| altgeek wrote:
| Rarely, there are tours. The dock is on the east side of City
| Island. Incarcerated NYS/NYC prisoners are conscripted for
| burial and brush cleanup duty, so you would occasionally see
| those buses parked at the dock.
| couchand wrote:
| The Hart Island Project has done great work on this. Their
| website has a map of the potter's fields:
| https://www.hartisland.net/mobile-map
| arizen wrote:
| "Staying up for days in the Chelsea hotel, Writing 'Sad Eyed Lady
| of the Lowlands' for you"
| alberth wrote:
| The hotel was effectively a rent controlled _apartment_.
|
| This story becomes way less interesting, and way more common
| (NYC), once that info is understood.
| pugworthy wrote:
| I think the main topic of the story was the person, not the
| details of the rental/payment agreement.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-11-15 23:02 UTC)