New York City has allowed a real estate developer to construct an apartment building with two classes of tenants, rich and poor, but where the poorer people have to use a separate back entrance, like servants’ have in feudal societies.
The Department of Housing Preservation and Development signed off on the application from Extell to build a 33-story building on the Upper West Side. The building will have 219 luxury condos that overlook the waterfront, according to the Post, and 55 “affordable” units that face the street. They will have separate entrances, which, as Gawker noted, sparked outrage last year when the plans were first revealed.
So why not make separate buildings for the two classes of tenants? You guessed it: money.
In an effort to secure tax breaks and other building allowances as part of New York City’s Inclusionary Housing Program, Extell Development Company has offered to set aside some 55 Affordable Housing units for low-income families inside the 274-unit luxury tower it is constructing in the Upper West Side.
The “catch” being that 40 Riverside Boulevard will feature two distinct entrances — one for affluent residents on the building’s Hudson-river facing façade, and the other in a back alley for Affordable Housing tenants.
So, rich people use the proximity of poor people to get cheaper housing by means of tax breaks targeted to producing affordable housing for the poor, but manage to avoid actually having to rub shoulders with them. And they think it is quite acceptable and are offended that anyone would think otherwise. As the developer of the property said:
“So now you have politicians talking about that, saying how horrible those back doors are. I think it’s unfair to expect very high-income homeowners who paid a fortune to live in their building to have to be in the same boat as low-income renters, who are very fortunate to live in a new building in a great neighborhood.”
These poor people are so ungrateful. They actually expect the rich people they subsidized to use the same doorway as them.
These poor people are so ungrateful
Eat the rich.
That’s just so sickeningly entitled, I don’t even know what to say. Except that, if they’re going to be like that, maybe they need their wealth taken away till they can treat poor people as human beings.
Rich people who cannot stand to use the same entrance as poor people have no business living in a democratic society. The aristocracy should be deported.
It really sounds like “servants entrance” to me.
Like back in the good old days when poor people knew their place and praised their masters for letting them have the scraps.
David von Spreckelsen: The man who brought class Apartheid to America. Take a bow son.
I suppose a separate entrance for the proles is a fair trade-off for residence in the “same building” instead of being located in a welfare warren miles away in a less toney neighborhood.
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The developers aren’t sacrificing very much here; those 55 “affordable” units would not likely have commanded the high rates of the 219 luxury condos on the other side of the building.
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Oh! the shame of living in a street-facing apartment!
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I’m surprised that Mr von Spreckelsen had not considered the option of a single entrance regulated by a turnstyle accepting only hundred-dollar bills. This would certainly have discouraged low-income renters and relegated them to their rightful places, although it would surely have slowed down entry by the renters as they also submitted to body searches and delousing sprays.
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Von Spreckelsen:
The simple fact is that we all are in the same boat, and the failure to recognise that will surely lead to the drowning of high-income homeowners along with their sycophants when the tide comes in. (Have you looked at the projections for underwater properties in New York City by the end of the century?) Low-income renters can bag their meagre belongings and flee to higher ground while the rich, clinging to their valued acquisitions and depleted property appreciations will soon find themselves to be no better off than the rest of us, if they are still breathing.
Let me guess, those upscale condo owners will be more than happy to hire the less monetarily flush tenants to clean their homes, drive their cars, and watch their kids. Still have to use the back door tho.
lol
There’s a problem with the law. What should have happened is that after the 274 unit condo was built, a city employee would go in and use a random number generator to choose 55 which would be designated low-income.
On the other hand, if I were low income, could I stand being surrounded by ass hole rich neighbors? Maybe my plan wouldn’t work.