even more quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a new rolling new york times thread

not a quid ag article as such, but right in the middle:

As the cases of bottled water and energy drinks stacked in the corner of the Yapalaters’ dining room attest, the family is cost conscious — especially since a photography business long owned by the family succumbed eight years ago in the shift to digital imaging. They moved out of Manhattan. They rent out their summer home on Fire Island. They have put off restoring the wallpaper in their dining room.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/health/colonoscopies-explain-why-us-leads-the-world-in-health-expenditures.html

Well-spotted! Yes, nothing says "cost conscious" like cases of bottled water.

They have put off restoring the wallpaper in their dining room.

not replacing, restoring! not given up, just put off. the cost consciousness is staggering!

Perhaps they could save some cash by inviting world-renowned freelance art restorer Cecilia Gimenez to take a shot at their wallpaper?

http://i1.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article1276453.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/The+20th+century+Ecce+Homo-style+fresco+of+Christ+after+its+amateur+restoration

http://gothamist.com/2013/06/01/video_conservative_who_represents_m.php

I actually picked up on this BEFORE gothamist, but forgot to post it here

lol i just put that in the politics thread. it's that important.

dorothy rabinowitz should be a recurring onion commentator

BEGRIMED

I love the "we all know" approach. Statistics be damned, it's the bicyclists who are the danger!

"the bike lobby is an all. powerful. enterprise."

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4071/4696317117_0de0a690bf_o.jpg

Jesus, it took a while before I realized that the joke there was not based on the word "enterprise" (as in the starship).

http://urbanvelo.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/nahbs_2010_356.jpg

King of My Castle? Yeah, Right

The City by the Bay is going through one of its worst housing shortages in memory. With typical high demand intensified by a regional boom in tech jobs, apartment open houses are mob scenes of desperate applicants clutching their credit reports. The citywide median rental price for a one-bedroom is $2,764 a month, but jumps to $3,500 in trendy areas.

One reason for the shortage? Me.

I’ve recently joined the ranks of San Francisco landlords who have decided that it’s better to keep an apartment empty than to lease it to tenants. Together, we have left vacant about 10,600 rental units. That’s about five percent of the city’s total — or enough space to house up to 30,000 people in a city that barely tops 800,000.

I feel a twinge of guilt for those who want to settle in this glorious city but can’t find a flat. But after renting out a one-bedroom apartment in my home for several years, I will never do it again. San Francisco’s anti-landlord housing laws and political climate make it untenable

scumbag

Seriously. "The law restricts my ability to exploit my tenants so I'm taking my rental and going home." What a big, jerk baby.

owner-occupied housing shouldn't be held to the same regulations as commercial rentals. that's stupid.

I think he makes the mistake of assuming that his tenant was crazy because of tenant protection laws rather than because sf is filled with crazy people

it's also very disingenuous to frame the vacancy rate as high when sf's is among the lowest in the entire country:
http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acsbr11-07.pdf

but yeah I agree with that too xp

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/opinion/sunday/loving-the-midwest.html?hp

strangely, when you move to a new place, it takes time to adjust, but then you do

EVEN WHEN IT IS THE MIDWEST

what a bizarrely narcissistic article xp. That "landlord"'s experiences couldn't be less representative of landlords. He was basically renting out a room in his basement, possibly illegally. And somehow in spite of his complaint that strong "renters rights" caused him problems, nowhere is that actually to be found in his story. Meanwhile, the vacancy rate in SF is actually low, not high, and his misconception that the 10,600 "acant apartments represent landlords who choose not to rent out their apartments is beyond imbecilic -- at any given time there are going to be some apartments where landlords are renovating, are waiting for the right tenant, etc., and very few of them are likely to be opt-outs from the real estate market. The fact that a property is "worth more" vacant is totally irrelevant unless the landlord sells, at which point another landlord would be buying so that he can rent out to generate income.

was expecting the end to be a complaint about an increased property tax assesment

"Well, the clerk explained, because of the city’s troublesome rental laws, a tenant-free property is much more valuable.

A check of comparable recent sales in our neighborhood, in fact, shows that empty buildings are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars more than those with tenants, and with the current housing-price boom, that profit margin (on paper, anyway) increases each month."

Gee, buildings for sale without tenants, allowing the new buyer a fresh start are more valuable than those with renters locked in? You don't say...

Of course, if you aren't selling your building, that makes the added value nonexistent.

Fuck this guy.

the comments on that are QuidAg gold

“It’s challenging for the boys to go from surfing in Malibu to Brooklyn, so we fill their rooms with surfer art,” Ms. Davis said.

Otherwise this maybe doesn't belong here but ugh
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/13/greathomesanddestinations/licensed-to-grill-mike-ds-brooklyn-town-house.html?hp&_r=0

man, it's WEIRD to see Mike D all yuppied out like that

sick pad though

that could almost be an onion article

Mr. Diamond, who prefers not to give his age

oh come on, it's already in the public record

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/artists/beastie-boys/biography

i was on my way to post that here
love ya mike but cmon

i really do love cobble hill and am terribly envious.

The thing that most weirds me out and just seems kinda distasteful is WHY they would even do the interview. Like what is the upside? To show off his wallpaper? The guy is already super famous and at least in nyc probably can't even go to the bodega for milk w/o getting recognized. You want people to see yr bathtub?

Also yeah wtf he's not even that old. Kim Gordon could be his mom almost.

I think we need to address the most pressing issue here: where the fuck have Mike D's eyebrows gone?

i really do love cobble hill and am terribly envious.

― dunham checks in (get bent), Wednesday, June 12, 2013 9:39 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh fuck yeah. H and I spent the morning gawking at the photos. I mean I don't think I'd go for that catalog-perfect look even if I had the money, but if you told me a condition of living there was not changing a thread I'd be happy.

But who are your light fixtures by?

Oh my god. That is my house. I'm not kidding, that house was on a realtor's website like three years ago or more when my life was pretty terrible, and I loved it so much I downloaded all the photos as a reminder of what happiness looked like. They gutted my brownstone.

!!

Mike D Is Playing In My House

http://corcoran.com/nyc/Listings/Display/2016313

lol I remember about 5 years ago, naively talking with H about how just "owning a brownstone in cobble hill" would be enough for us to live out the rest of our days happy, as though that were some kind of modest goal. Maybe in post-crisis 2008 it was? History has really dickslapped us on that one.

“Our goal was to limit our total reno-architecture budget to under $500,000,” he said. “Which we pretty much succeeded in. It meant that at times we’d splurge on one light fixture, but not another. And it helped because we ended up having to retain original detail, clean it up and leave it as is.”

reno-architecture, Mr. born in 1965

I think he could afford to upgrade his stereo.

To get that last .5%?

It's just funny that they've thrown money all over that place but the turntable is just a regular old TT sitting on a tea cart.
Eh sorta funny anyway. Or maybe Not really.

the beastie boooyyyyyyyyyyyysssss
you know they splurging on a light fixxxtuuuurrre
But only occasionalllyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
Only occassionllyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

China otm; it's just surprising there isn't a bigger, more terribly self-mythologising ~musical~ presence in the decor. bono probably has Elvis Presley statues & shit, it's weird that this place is 99% expensive glasswork & only minimally manifests musicianship

also this place is way too breakable. for a house with kids? a Pierre Cardin rug & exposed collections of antique china perched on glass shelves? any one of the things in this house being broken would be enough to tear apart a family, a modest Brooklyn earthquake would be like the end of the world here

i mean i ask you, mr. diamond, do you even remember what happened when i broke my granddad's cuckoo clock

huh, i always just assumed the beastie boys still lived above

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_rYfuewuzrOc/TKVYt037WuI/AAAAAAAAEGQ/GMpVWJGsJO0/s400/110288_1_f.jpg

those speakers look lame too. he should have doper speakers. man he looks freaky.