# These crazy tiny New York City apartments aren't legal, are they? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 22, 2013, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/these-crazy-tiny-new-york-city-apartments-arent-legal-are-they/659015 "2013-05-22T14:06:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Tequila\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a6a055/32.png) [@Tequila\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tequila_Party)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/these-crazy-tiny-new-york-city-apartments-arent-legal-are-they/659015/41 "2013-05-23T18:08:22Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > As I’ve said, it makes no sense to me. Yeah, me neither. Especially after people went and explained it and all. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/these-crazy-tiny-new-york-city-apartments-arent-legal-are-they/659015/42 "2013-05-23T20:26:44Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > No, most of them are very not legal. You can’t have a residential apartment in a basement, in a windowless room, or that’s less than 550 sq. feet. > > There are exceptions that are grandfathered, in that case, the residential use must be continuous from a time when such use was legal, which is clearly not the case in these recent conversions. The first two restrictions might be accurate, but the third cannot be. See [Here & Now](http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2013/01/31/micro-apartments-nyc) for news about a recent competition to design micro-apartments that measure between 250 and 370 sq. feet. Although that item is undated, it was from earlier this year. My daughter’s first NY apartment was about 150 sq. ft. It had enough room for a bed/couch, a tiny table, a 2 burner stove above a small fridge and a toilet, sink, and shower. The next one was double that size and, for a single person, quite adequate. Besides her bed it had room for a sofabed on which my wife and I slept quite happily. I think it still had a shower but no bathtub. Then she moved into Stuyvesant Town, into an apartment that might have been 500 sq. ft. and certainly had a full bath. Then she got married and moved into a larger (2BR) apartment, maybe 650 sq. ft. Then Stuy Town was sold to a real estate company for an incredible who planned to triple the rents in five years. She moved to Brooklyn, had a baby, moved to an apartment that may total (on two floors) 1100 sq. ft., although not well laid out. But I cannot imagine why they would want to ban small apartments unless they are trying to push everyone below the 1% to NJ. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/these-crazy-tiny-new-york-city-apartments-arent-legal-are-they/659015/43 "2013-05-23T22:04:16Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > The first two restrictions might be accurate, but the third cannot be. See [Here & Now](http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2013/01/31/micro-apartments-nyc) for news about a recent competition to design micro-apartments that measure between 250 and 370 sq. feet. Although that item is undated, it was from earlier this year. > \ The competition was not sponsored by NYC government, and was held in [anticipation of the possibility that the City council might](http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20130409/REAL_ESTATE/130409868) change the law. I was incorrect about 550 (only a subclass of industrial conversion lofts must be 550); residential zoning requires 400 sq ft in a Class A apartment (there are different rules for single-room occupancy), and the rule hasn’t recently, probably not since the 1968 Zoning Resolution. Your daughter’s apartments were definitely illegal if they were truly as you say. [http://www.npr.org/2013/04/25/177324320/making-room-can-smaller-apartments-help-new-york-city-grow](http://www.npr.org/2013/04/25/177324320/making-room-can-smaller-apartments-help-new-york-city-grow) ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/these-crazy-tiny-new-york-city-apartments-arent-legal-are-they/659015/44 "2013-05-23T22:12:47Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > The first two restrictions might be accurate, but the third cannot be. See [Here & Now](http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2013/01/31/micro-apartments-nyc) for news about a recent competition to design micro-apartments that measure between 250 and 370 sq. feet. Although that item is undated, it was from earlier this year. > > My daughter’s first NY apartment was about 150 sq. ft. It had enough room for a bed/couch, a tiny table, a 2 burner stove above a small fridge and a toilet, sink, and shower. The next one was double that size and, for a single person, quite adequate. Besides her bed it had room for a sofabed on which my wife and I slept quite happily. I think it still had a shower but no bathtub. Then she moved into Stuyvesant Town, into an apartment that might have been 500 sq. ft. and certainly had a full bath. Then she got married and moved into a larger (2BR) apartment, maybe 650 sq. ft. Then Stuy Town was sold to a real estate company for an incredible who planned to triple the rents in five years. She moved to Brooklyn, had a baby, moved to an apartment that may total (on two floors) 1100 sq. ft., although not well laid out. But I cannot imagine why they would want to ban small apartments unless they are trying to push everyone below the 1% to NJ. Hey, I live in Stuytown! (As well as 25,000 others.) ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/these-crazy-tiny-new-york-city-apartments-arent-legal-are-they/659015/45 "2013-05-23T22:59:07Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > A while ago I read some article online in which presumably demented architects/city planners were offering the suggestion that New York wasn’t maximizing the density potential of the land mass, and that the overpopulation problem could be solved by packing New Yorkers closer together on the lines of Kowloon Walled City of especial memory in that same territory. Wow. “The Black Hole of Manhattan”. It has a ring, doesn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Nawth\_Chucka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2013, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/these-crazy-tiny-new-york-city-apartments-arent-legal-are-they/659015/46 "2013-05-24T03:25:04Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > Yeah, I can talk shit about places I’ve never been, also. > > HURRRR DERR DETROIT GANG WARS AND EMINEM!!!111 HAHA THE WHOLE PLACE IS BANKRUPT! > > Actually, I take that back. I’ve been to Detroit’s airport and they have a fiscally solvent Cinnabon. I’d lay you odds you were actually at Wayne County Metro Airport (DTW) when you saw that Cinnabon; it’s in Romulus, a 20-20 minute drive from Detroit. The airport IN the city of Detroit is too small to have such an upscale purveyor of carb-laden, baked-off-premises treats. Some of the upthread reminded me of the walk-in kitchen larder that was in a flat I rented in Hamtramck years ago. It was as big, if not bigger, than a regular walk-in bedroom closet and could easily have fit a twin-sized bed. It had a window and all the shelves one could ever need. Considering the history of the place I don’t doubt it had been someone’s living space at one (or multiple) times. For people in some industries NYC is their ONLY hope for success. How could anyone be faulted for living there in any affordable way they could find? ---
**Author:** ![Scholar\_Beardpig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de053/32.png) [@Scholar\_Beardpig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scholar_Beardpig)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2013, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/these-crazy-tiny-new-york-city-apartments-arent-legal-are-they/659015/47 "2013-05-24T04:58:20Z")
Those 100 square feet houses… my apartment is only 130 square feet. You can do a lot with that much space. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2013, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/these-crazy-tiny-new-york-city-apartments-arent-legal-are-they/659015/48 "2013-05-24T20:34:57Z")
My first NYC apartment was WAY worse than some of those. It was a 4 room railroad flat…2 of the rooms were basically hallways, my roommate and I put loft beds in those room and they served as the bedrooms. No privacy, you had to walk through the “bedrooms” to get from the living room to the kitchen. The Bathroom was just a toilet with an overhead tank and the bathtub was in the kitchen. Landlord was a slumlord and the place was in perpetual disrepair. But it was located in Manhattan in the East 50’s in good neighborhood convenient to everything. You have to realize that WE WERE NEVER HOME, it was literally a place to sleep. I left for work at my first job at 8AM, I usually went directly from work to a second job working on Off-Broadway plays and I was out playing and partying on the nights I wasn’t working. It was a crash pad. My best friends ( both straight women) lived in a small studio apartment in the same neighborhood. That apartment was in modern building and nicer than mine, but so small that they had to share a double bed. But with the hours we were keeping it would have been ridiculous to have to commute in and out of the city ( or even to the Outer Boroughs ) in exchange for a better place to sleep. Mine was fire - safe though, there were big ugly fire escapes on either end of the apartment. Once our fridge was out of order for several months so my neighbor in the building next door let us share hers, we would go out our kitchen window onto the fire escape then climb in her kitchen window every time we needed milk or beer or whatever. ---
**Author:** ![vix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a88e4f/32.png) [@vix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vix)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2013, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/these-crazy-tiny-new-york-city-apartments-arent-legal-are-they/659015/49 "2013-05-25T03:37:41Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > Fair enough; I guess it was puzzling to me why people don’t prefer to enjoy all that while also taking an extra hour to commute each day. But, I guess it’s part of the experience. For me, it was the entire experience. For a few years, I lived in Brooklyn (Park Slope) and worked in Manhattan. I did have a commute, but to another fascinating place. As others have said, I loved the vibrancy and availability of the city. My social life was largely conducted at lunch (I often met friends who worked near by) or after work. Many times, when I was meeting folks for drinks or dinner, if I had an hour to kill, I’d walk to wherever we were meeting, just to take it all in. In 2003, my job (which I had no great love for) moved to Westchester. That would have destroyed my lifestyle, between having a much longer commute and no longer having easy access to friends and everything else New York City offers. So, ironically I chose to move to South Florida (to be with my now-husband). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/these-crazy-tiny-new-york-city-apartments-arent-legal-are-they/659015.md?page=2)