Five Flights Up: And Other New York Apartment Stories

By Toni Schlesinger

Book Overview

A op house, a pumping station, a maid's room, a homeless center, a former brothel, a Richard Meier building, a circus trailer, a sail boat, a skyscraper, buildings named Esther and Lorainejust a few... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1568985851
• ISBN13: 9781568985855
• Release Date: March 2006
• Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.21 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 8.9"
• Grade Range: Grade 8 to Postsecondary

Customer Reviews

prepares you for life in NYC

There is nothing like this book: how responsible people with real budgets live in the tiniest apartments, in precarious situations, and in creative, joyful ways in spite of the most egregious constraints. None of it is applicable in other cities, only in New York do you have a whole family (two parents, two kids) live in a studio apartment. I love how the author gets people to disclose the actual rent they pay, the square footage, etc. Only in NY is it not completely rude to ask strangers about a major part of their finances. This book prepares you for the sacrifices and joys of living in New York, and how central the housing issue is in this overcrowded city, and how one is hardly alone in obsessing about real estate. One book that is an excellent companion to this book is Living Large In Small Spaces by M. Bartolucci. This is about how real people including New Yorkers live cleverly (i.e., organize and decorate) in 100 sqft to 1000 sqft apartments, and while many people interviewed live on limited budgets, dollar figures are missing. The two books go really well together.

Witty, Surprising and Unexpectedly Sweet

Toni Schlesinger's Q & A sessions with quirky New York residents in their even quirkier apartments are a true gem that will find a place in the heart of anyone who went through that formidable process of NYC apartment hunting. A compilation of the original Village Voice column, "Shelter," the book is separated into sections such as "Miniature," "Light," "Utopia" and "Haunted," but what I really love about this book is that it allows you to randomly pick a story from over three hundred interviews whenever you happen to pass by it. Schlesinger is a writer for the Voice, so naturally you can expect an insightful, knowledgeable and confident interviewer at work, but I found the unexpected affection, brilliant candor and humor in the many voices of Manhattan she chronicles to be her greatest achievement. The book answered for me that mysterious question why even after the rats, the horrid rent and evil landlords New Yorkers still find it so enchanting to live in New York, or "Neverland" as Schlesinger calls it.