Growing up in the English Midlands, Rowan Papier always considered himself a “creative soul,” he said.
As a teenager, he showed photographs he had taken to some professional connections he made via a sister who was a child model. That led, several years ago, to an internship in the studio of Bruce Weber, later followed by one with David LaChapelle.
When he arrived in New York in 2010, Mr. Papier — whose father is American — stayed with relatives in Bayside, Queens, for a few weeks. Later, he moved among Bushwick, Williamsburg and Harlem, rooming with friends and staying in sublets.
“I was roughing it,” he said. “I was living out of two suitcases.” Back then, the novelty of a new apartment every few months was exciting. Now, at 22, “I cannot imagine trying to live out of a few suitcases,” he said.
Last year, Mr. Papier found himself in the 11th apartment he had inhabited in New York, a Chinatown two-bedroom in a postwar midrise condominium. He paid a bit more than half of the $2,300 rent.
It was close to the Manhattan Bridge in Chinatown, “probably my least favorite neighborhood I’ve lived in,” he said. The streets were crowded and dirty. “I had no feeling of familiarity in Chinatown. I was craving a neighborhood with cute coffee shops, where you have brunch with friends.”
Mr. Papier had been living frugally, working as a photographer and saving to be able to rent a place that felt like home. In the spring, he began hunting in Greenwich Village and on the Lower East Side, often finding himself faced with “a tossup, like space vs. recently renovated vs. neighborhood,” he said.
“I was aware I was going to have to downgrade in size” to end up in a coveted neighborhood, with a place filled with “charm and a feeling of authentic New York,” he said.
Mr. Papier soon found that a price in the $2,000s for a one-bedroom was unrealistic. He figured he could find a nicer two-bedroom in the mid-to-high $3,000s. If need be, he could rent the second room to a friend.
In a nondescript postwar condominium in TriBeCa, a two-bedroom was available for $3,900 a month. But the ceilings were low and the building plain.
The location was less than ideal, too. Mr. Papier hesitated about being just two blocks from busy Canal Street. “Canal Street is so crazy it is like Times Square or Broadway or something, it is so intense.”
On the Lower East Side, a renovated two-bedroom in a building with a roof deck and a gym was almost $4,000. “It was pristine,” Mr. Papier said, but small in every way. “The staircases were tiny, the closets were tiny, you open the door to the bedroom and immediately walk into the bed.”
And it was on the top floor of a six-story walk-up. “That is a lot of money to have something that is an inconvenience to you,” said Mr. Papier, who travels often, lugging suitcases. “If it is a dream apartment, you can suck it up,” but this was not.
In NoLIta, a two-bedroom was advertised at around $4,100. Mr. Papier loved the location, “a stone’s throw from Whole Foods.” But this one wasn’t a real two-bedroom; a temporary wall had been removed.
The mismatch of housing stock and neighborhood was sinking in. Mr. Papier didn’t want a small walk-up building, but his targeted neighborhoods were filled with them. “I am envisioning a TriBeCa loft with character in Greenwich Village, which is kind of impossible to find.”
But the character he sought, if not the loft, appeared when an agent took him to a co-op building on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, originally built as a hotel, with a soaring interior atrium. The apartment had two bedrooms covering 850 square feet and the high ceilings Mr. Papier craved. The rent was $3,700.
He loved it instantly. “It matched my aesthetic,” he said. “I felt this was a rare find.” After a lengthy application process, Mr. Papier paid a fee of 12 percent of a year’s rent — more than $5,000 — and moved in over the summer.
The neighborhood is full of cute coffee shops and places for brunch. On busy Bleecker Street, “when you step out on a Friday night, it is really crazy outside,” he said. Inside, however, he faces an air shaft. “It’s so quiet it’s eerie. I have no idea whether I have neighbors or not.”
His bedroom, with two skinny windows, receives little light. That’s fine with Mr. Papier, who sometimes does photo retouching there. He worked for hours on a full-page photo just published in Vogue Australia.
He decorated his bedroom lavishly, prominently hanging an image of himself on one wall. Some of the furniture was custom made; some is antique. “I felt I had never been content with my surroundings,” he said. Now, he absolutely is.
“Home decorating turned into one of my projects,” he said. “It’s a luxurious pop-art environment that reflects my taste and is a true representation of me.”
that room is the type of room my girlfriends would have laughed about for weeks back when we were single. We referred to one of my friend's hook up buddy as "red satin sheets"
This is a recurring column in the NYT. They always profile people who have significant resources (either their own or family resources). There isn't anything wrong with profiling the lives of the upper middle class/wealthy but I just don't think they make it clear how very unusual these stories are.
IRL There are far more stories of I'll take anything in my price range if it is safe and I'll take anything in a right school district. OH and IKEA is often the "decorator" of apartments.
Well he goes to brunch in NYC so we already covered that he's terrible.
Seriously though, I want to shake him.
ETA: I keep staring at the picture and laughing. Can you imagine dating or befriending this guy and having THIS be what you see when you go to hang out at his place? Ridiculous.
This is a recurring column in the NYT. They always profile people who have significant resources (either their own or family resources). There isn't anything wrong with profiling the lives of the upper middle class/wealthy but I just don't think they make it clear how very unusual these stories are.
IRL There are far more stories of I'll take anything in my price range if it is safe and I'll take anything in a right school district. OH and IKEA is often the "decorator" of apartments.
I know it is. Doesn't make this article and subject any less WTF.
Mr. Papier loved the location, “a stone’s throw from Whole Foods.”
This is satire! It must be!
Can you imagine interviewing to be his roommate? "And this is MY room..." "Oh! Um, okay. Nice picture. I like the cheetah." *runs screaming down the hallway*
Well he goes to brunch in NYC so we already covered that he's terrible.
Seriously though, I want to shake him.
ETA: I keep staring at the picture and laughing. Can you imagine dating or befriending this guy and having THIS be what you see when you go to hang out at his place? Ridiculous.
I'm pretty sure I'd never be able to befriend someone this self-centered.
Also, he's 22, working as a photographer, and able to afford a $3,700 a month apartment? Can we say "mom and dad financed"?
Post by Velar Fricative on Oct 20, 2014 12:25:29 GMT -5
BTW, as bad as this is, I don't know if anything will ever top the Times' Vows spotlight on the couple who cheated on their spouses with each other. That was the best/worst.
BTW, as bad as this is, I don't know if anything will ever top the Times' Vows spotlight on the couple who cheated on their spouses with each other. That was the best/worst.
I often am quite giddy when it's Sunday morning and time for the wedding announcements.
"PSA: The NY Times has a weakness for self-parodying trend-baiting, masochistic Millennial obsessing, and the perverse lifestyles of the filthy rich. If a reporter with the Real Estate, Style or Weekend sections approaches you about a story, just smile gently and run in the opposite direction. No one is forcing you to become representative of everything that everyone hates about New Yorkers."
Headline:"Generation Nice" Are You Kidding With This Shit: No, this is a real article in the Paper Of Record. How Many Times Is The Word "Millennial" Used In The Story? Counting the subhead, 33 times. What Is So "Nice" About Millennials? Considering the fact that niceness is never directly discussed in the piece, that's hard to say! But they are "optimists," they are empathetic, they are cultural transformers, and they are multi-millionaire basketball players with receding hairlines. Actually, it really sounds like the 58-year-old writer of the piece might have a serious crush on Millennials. How Many Millennial Icons Can They Cram Into One Article: Lana Del Ray, Lena Dunham, LeBron James (?), Leslie Jamison, Brandon Stanton (aka Humans Of NY), Tao Lin. What Have Millennials Contributed To The World?: Occupy Wall Street (RIP), popular photo blogs, Yotels, "narcissism" (but not really?), a boom in online shopping, locavore menus, and of course, "oversharing." Look, I Really Don't Want To Hate-Read This Piece, So Can You Just Cherry Pick The Worst Part Of It? Of course we can. Behold: Consider the approach many take to the workplace. Thanks to the 2008 economic crash, millennials know how fleeting wealth can be. Their solution? For many, it is to acquire not more, but less. “Almost two-thirds (64 percent) of millennials said they would rather make $40,000 a year at a job they love than $100,000 a year at a job they think is boring,” the Brookings Institution recently noted in a report by Morley Winograd and Michael Hais titled “How Millennials Could Upend Wall Street and Corporate America.” The generation that gave us Occupy Wall Street has embraced its own modes of entrepreneurship, found across the broad spectrum of “creatives,” from stylists to techies, who reject the presumed security of the corporate job and riskily pursue their own ventures, even if it means working out of their parents’ basement. At the same time, record numbers of new college graduates are applying for jobs in the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps or Teach for America.
Post by tacosforlife on Oct 20, 2014 12:51:59 GMT -5
I haven't read this, but ugh, Lena Dunham as a millennial icon? NO. I think she is reasonably talented, but I have a real problem with people whose first work is memoir-sequence/semi-autobiographical. She needs to produce real content before she can make everything about herself. I know, I know. That's the problem with millennials. Some of us still appreciate real art, though.
Many on gothamist are speculating the $45k per year apartment is financed by a sugar daddy.
This is my favorite gothamist comment: "I just hope against hope that the the whole point of this was to allow NYT to install a secret camera in that bedroom, so that we can see what happens the first time this guy brings home a young lady or young man for sexytimes to the fucking Uday Hussein suite displayed above.
Oh that? That's my gold-leaf painted porcelain jaguar. And this bed actually once belonged to Count Dracula. I had it shipped over from the Carpathains. As for everything else, I'm going through a little Louis XIV phase- typical artist, I know. Do you like my painting? Where are you going?"