New York City luxury living

Recently, while driving on the East River drive, I spotted an ad for an apartment complex I used to live in touting it as a “luxury” residence. When I lived there it was primarily inhabited by retired postal workers and teachers and was considered solidly middle class. But hey, that was in the old days, when just anyone could live in our town. But with the real estate boom, low-crime rate and shiny, new image, everything in town seems to be luxury nowadays. So to help newcomers find their way around the bewildering array of housing options in our great city, I am publishing the following guide to luxury living in the big Apple.



You’ve found a real luxury apartment in New York City when:

1. You can plug in a toaster and coffee maker at the same time without shorting out the electricity


2. You get heat most of the time in winter


3. Your apartment has been repainted in the last 8 years


4. Something in the kitchen is granite or looks like it


5. Something in your bathroom is marble or looks like it


6. There are new, poorly installed windows that let in drafts


7. Everybody in the building looks like they make more money than you do


8. You have at least 2 closets


9. There is a postage-stamp size exercise room that nobody uses


10. In the summer, your neighbors complain about the traffic driving in from Amagansett


11. Out of town relatives who come to visit, offer to lend you money so you can “get back on your feet” and move to someplace “decent”


12. Fresh Direct delivers to your neighborhood


13. The lobby reminds you of how your aunt Lucinda remodeled her living room after her trip to Miami


14. There is a decorative cabbage growing in a pot in front of the building


15. There is a tree within walking distance


16. No one says hello in the elevator
17. You have an elevator


18. Everyone in the building wears only black


19. You are paying ½ your income to live here


20. You give the Concierge, whose job is to open the front door, the equivalent of a month’s rent at Christmas time to ensure your packages don’t wind up in the East River