Banker Or Bread Line

The aftermath of the pandemic is brutal, especially for creative workers in our cities.

In 2019, 61 million people visited New York City, and they didn’t come to watch rich people fly out to the Hamptons. They came to dine in restaurants staffed by beautiful young people, painting by day, serving by night. They came to watch dancers in A Chorus Line, or hear a sweet sax in Bar 51. They came to feel the epic vitality of the world’s #1 city.

What they didn’t see is the daily struggle of living in a city that was built by the creative spark of a thousand pens, sings the songs of a century of Broadway, paints the stage with a ballerinas pliué, but has morphed into a billionaire ‘s row of empty supertalls.

The rule of thumb in New York is to rent a 460 square feet of space on the fourth floor of a poorly maintained building for a monthly rent of $3000, you need tax returns that show 40 times rent ($120,000) You need first and last month rent ($6000) and one month security deposit ($3000.) You need to pay an agent’s fee of 15% of the first year’s rent ($18,000) for a grand total of $27,000 just to get the front door key.

The agent’s fee is negotiable. Everything is negotiable in New York, but be prepared to drop serious cash.