From Williamsburg to other parts of Williamsburg, hipsters mobilize on rent
The hipsters are mad as hell about higher rents, and they’re not going to take it anymore. This email made the rounds in early June, according to Curbed.com:
“Are you a hipster? Do you pay too much in rent? Did you know that nearly one-third of NYC tenants pay half of their incomes in rent?… How many times have you been forced to leave an apartment because of an unexpected and arbitrary 30 percent jump in rent? How much longer can you not break up with your boyfriend, who you’ve been living with to cut your housing expenses in half? How much further out on the L train can you go?”
If you answered yes to most of these questions, you presumably qualify as a hipster — one being sought out to help fight the very real reality of rising New York City rents. The email asked hipsters to attend a meeting on fair rent laws hosted by tenant advocacy group Housing Here & Now.
Brokers see the devil, condos discussed
The owner of 16 condo-hotel units in the St. Regis Hotel took a novel approach recently to selling them. In late May, a half-dozen guests, all brokers, were invited to a private screening of “The Devil Wears Prada” with the movie’s star, Meryl Streep, according to the Wall Street Journal. The brokers then went on to dinner and a charity auction of clothing worn in the movie, which is based on the best-selling book. The screening cost Starwood Resorts Worldwide, the St. Regis’ owner, about $200,000 — not a bad return, considering the typical sales price of a Manhattan condo.
Finding the right kind of people — subtly — for the upper Upper West Side
Getting new condos to stand out in Manhattan is no simple task. Everyone does the top-notch amenities. More and more hit the market with a celebrity name or names attached (see above item). And all sell for prices that let everyone know a buyer is someone with huge chunks of change to spend on housing.
So, what’s a developer do to stand out? How about bringing children and cartoons into the marketing mix and directly playing to the socioeconomic aspirations of young couples? Extell Development Corporation has done just that to tout its new Ariel East and West condos on Broadway at 100th and 99th streets. The developer created two fake families through cartoons.
One cartoon features the Silver family, a compact unit of twin toddlers and two parents.
“The twins,” the mom says, “just got into every school from the park to the river. Where should we send them, Alan?” The dad tells his wife that “with an IQ of 150,” their children should be fast-tracked to college.
The cartoons have elicited some strong emotions (and, for better or worse, PR for Extell’s Ariel). “Truly one of the more obnoxious adverts ever seen,” wrote an anonymous critic on Curbed.com in June. “This says everything about the gentrification of the Upper Upper Upper West Side.”