DC is historically pretty low density compared to NYC. It was a small city until after WW2. And I’m not sure it’s standard. I lived in DC for two summers during college, both in Adams Morgan and U Street area, and didn’t have in-unit dishwasher or laundry. And these were reasonably nice buildings. And it’s not like these things are rare in NYC, they just aren’t expected for modest apartments. I have both (I’m in Park Slope area) and live in a nice building, but not quite luxury.
I mean every flat i’ve lived in or visited in Madrid over the last 20 years has had both, so our anecdotes don’t really mean anything here.
All I’m saying is that in NYC these amenities are seen as luxuries, when in other places they’re just seen for what they are - “modern” (going on 170+ years now) appliances. This line of thinking is partly why so many new builds in the city billed as “luxury apartments” are actually cheap crap, but still go for exorbitant prices.
For what its worth, I agree with you that NYCHA housing shouldn’t be designed for long term tenancy. But perhaps if the base standard of living in the projects can improve, so can the standard of living city-wide. Rising tide, and all that.
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Construction starts next summer and could take around six years.
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Difficult to bring Europe into this equation as they have a higher standard of living than USA. I live in NYC entry level luxury and there is no w/d in the units. It’s not allowed because of the age of the plumbing in this building. In unit w/d is more at the condo level.
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That’s not true. Europe does not have a higher standard of living.
- What’s the methodology?
- The USA is ahead of the relatively large countries like the UK, Spain, and France.
- The countries ahead of the USA by and large are very small and very homogenous.
The US is an absurdly rich nation and the quality of life outside of NYC (If you aren’t rich) is light years better, so I can understand why you think the way you do.
I live in Tennessee and I have had a washer/dryer for my entire life. My dad worked in manufacturing and my mom was stay at home for a long time.
You can’t judge the USA by NYC. NYC is the best city in the world, though, for rich people.
I only brought up Madrid in response to crawdad’s earlier comment mentioning it
I imagine that health care is weighted heavily in favor for Europe, but is not really applicable to the specific discussion of quality of housing stock we are having here.
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lowkey we are talking about APARTMENT BUILDINGS IN NYC. Your point of view is limited to your life experience.
From NY Times 2010 -
THE final noisemaker has squealed and the last dinner guest has straggled home, so the holiday extravaganza that is Christmas and New Year’s — spread out over two long weekends and punctuated by a blizzard — is over.
Now it’s time for the cleanup, and that can mean dealing with more than the usual number of napkins splashed with red wine. For most people in the city, getting the laundry done will mean lugging it to a wash-and-fold service or taking it to the machines in the basement with a stack of quarters in hand.
But a growing number of New Yorkers can give the holiday linens a hot bath at home in their own washers and dryers. This staple of the suburbs remains uncommon in the city — apartments that have washers and dryers make up only about 20 percent of the sales and rental listings in Manhattan, according to StreetEasy, the real estate Web site. But demand is increasing, condominium developers are making these appliances part of the standard package, and older buildings — even prewars — are relaxing longtime bans to keep residents happy and to avoid scaring off buyers.
But newer buildings have the edge. A search of StreetEasy’s listings in late December showed that 593 Manhattan co-ops for sale offered washers, versus 1,849 condos.
A washer can be worth far more than its weight in lost socks.
Jonathan J. Miller, the president of Miller Samuel, the appraisal company, said that “while there is no known empirical data to reliably measure this amenity,” a washing machine can add as much as 5 percent to an apartment’s price tag.
“It is the ultimate convenience,” said Doug Steinberg, whose one-bedroom condo, at 315 Seventh Avenue in Chelsea, is now on the market for $739,000. The apartment, No. 7B, has its own laundry tucked behind a louvered door, with shelves for detergent and towels.
There was no such space in the two apartments Mr. Steinberg, 38, had previously rented in the building. Nor was there in his current home, which he bought in 2004 and immediately gave a laundry closet, carving it out of a bathroom hallway. The shared machines in the 23-story building’s four laundry areas “tore up” his clothes, he said.
In 2007 the condo board, of which Mr. Steinberg is now president, clarified the rules to allow washers if the floors under them were waterproofed, and the dryers were of the ventless variety. Today, washers and dryers can be found in about a quarter of the building’s apartments, he said.
Brian Goldfarb of Citi Habitats, who is a listing broker on the apartment, says a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses mentality may be stoking interest in washing machines. “They go out and see all these new condos that have them,” he said, “and it plants a seed in their head.”
New technology is also helping to fuel the trend. The washers sold today, especially the front-loading type, tend to be smaller than the top-load models, making them an easier fit for, say, a kitchen alcove, said Allan Schuster, a manager at Gringer & Sons, an appliance store on First Avenue in Manhattan.
The new appliances generally require less water and electricity than older models. In addition, ventless, or “condensing,” dryers don’t need an air pipe. That is a boon for city residents who can’t breach their exterior walls, said Mr. Schuster, who has been selling washers and dryers for almost four decades.
The divide between buildings that allow washers and ones that don’t is not as simple as prewar versus postwar. Both exclusive co-ops with a few units per floor and more densely packed 1950s white-brick buildings can have problems if the pipes get clogged with soapy residue, managers say. But buildings that can monitor the condition of their plumbing and take steps to cut down on suds can usually handle washers.
Some buildings — like Museum Tower at 15 West 53rd Street, a 240-unit condo built in 1985 — are reversing long-term bans. In the summer of 2009, the board changed House Rule No. 37 to allow washers and dryers, said Corinne Vitale, a broker at Brown Harris Stevens who has sold dozens of units there.
“I thought we were losing deals,” Ms. Vitale said, “and I made my thoughts known.”
And it isn’t happening just in the “for sale” market. Luxury rentals, too, have washers and dryers, among them a couple in Williamsburg, Brooklyn: the new 34 Berry and 184 Kent, a converted warehouse.
At the same time there are holdouts. At 180 East 79th Street, a prewar co-op, the board decided to ban washers as a preventive measure in the 1980s after engineers on the board voiced concerns about wear and tear from too much soap, said Pierrette Hogan, a Sotheby’s broker and resident.
Today, Ms. Hogan said, she gets a call a week from brokers asking if the building’s policy has changed, up from zero calls five years ago. And about 10 of every 200 people who look at apartments there each year reject them because of the washer ban, she said, adding that the policy could be revoked soon.
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A washer/dryer closet at 315 Seventh Avenue.Credit…Joshua Bright for The New York Times
Nevada Towers, a 1977 condop at 2025 Broadway on the Upper West Side, allows washers in its 231 apartments. No. 16K, a light-filled two-bedroom listed for $1.25 million, is the result of a combination with a neighboring unit, whose galley kitchen was transformed into a laundry area, with a utility sink and track lighting to complement side-by-side Frigidaire machines.
And in that building, where doing a load in the basement laundry can cost as much $3.50, having one’s own might be smart economics. “If you were to put a jar on top of the washer and put the money in like you would put it in the machines downstairs,” said Gloria Macri, the Halstead broker who has the listing, “I’m sure you would see a nice return pretty quickly.”
But even for those who don’t count their quarters, the definition of urban luxury surely includes appliances under your very own roof. At 15 Broad Street, a former office building that was converted to high-end condominiums by Africa Israel and Boymelgreen Developers with design input from Philippe Starck, all 326 units have Bosch washers and dryers.
A two-bedroom two-bath unit, No. 2524, is listed with Darren Kearns, an associate broker at the Corcoran Group, for $1.299 million. Its washer and dryer are to be found where they typically are in Manhattan: stacked inside a closet.
Brooklyn apartments, especially those in brownstones, often have more spacious layouts, allowing washers and dryers more elbow room.
Some 80 percent of smaller multi-unit buildings in neighborhoods like Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill and Park Slope allow washers and dryers, said Trish Martin, an associate broker with Brown Harris Stevens, who is listing a two-bedroom unit, No. 1R, at 307 Seventh Street, an eight-unit building.
The duplex, priced at $1.195 million, has a small laundry room in its carpeted basement for the exclusive use of the owners. The space holds a full-size Whirlpool washer and dryer.
“It’s better than a closet, where there’s really no room to work,” said Ms. Martin on a recent tour, adding that the listing was capitalizing on this new in-house, no-quarters-needed, no-wait-ever status symbol.
“You see dryers going during open houses,” she said, “to make sure people don’t miss them.”
Our 1970s rental/now coop allows W/D but it has to be in a water over water location. So those apartments with a powder room can use it for a stacked laundry unit if owners want. The old kitchens are galley type and it’s hard to find room for a stacked unit. If room allows expansion, they can be put in. Ventless dryers must be used in all installations. Apartments made from combining units like ours are easier to modify. There is a large laundry room in the basement that requires paycard use. Though finding units with W/D in older buildings is a challenge it is becoming more common. Overall, the small size of many city aparments makes it quite difficult to install them in many buildings.
That parking has got to go.
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So this is going to tear down 18 ugly buildings and replace them with new ones? I walked past that area a few weeks ago and the buildings look terrible. isn’t that a huge upgrade for the neighborhood?
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It’s going to be a huge upgrade, but some folks don’t trust the system. They’d rather continue to live in decrepitude than take their chances.
A quote from the article:
But concerns about potential displacement have fueled some of the opposition to the plan, as residents and their allies worry the tenants won’t be able to return. Other opponents say they fear losing their current rights to pay a percentage of their income toward rent and pass on apartments to family members. They presented the board with a petition signed by 939 residents opposing the demolition plan.
“The demolition proposal is being forced on us. It’s what you want,” Elliott Houses tenant Celines Miranda told the board. “It’s obvious what the true motive is for this demolition: It’s a land grab.”
Officials from NYCHA, Essence and Related have sought to allay residents’ concerns by promising that the tenants will retain their same lease rights throughout the project, though the tenants may be forced to move into units that are smaller than their current apartments.
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Hopefully this will be successful and a model for further redevelopment of these “towers in the park” public housing complexes.
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They would only do this in desirable areas. They’ve been hatching this plan for quite a while.
I wish they would do it everywhere but at least for the Chelsea neighborhood it sounds to me fantastic. Also happy the residents get better living conditions. I hope it’s nice buildings and they don’t cut corners on design with the ugly red brick in the originals
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