Stuyvesant Town

Every city has a Stuy Town. It's that urban residential area that isn't in proximity to anything important and is nothing but generic apartment complexes jammed under a freeway.

The best part about Stuy Town is leaving Stuy Town, in that it is fairly close to the more exciting parts of lower Manhattan. The apartments are affordable and decent on the inside and you have access to all the basics. It's a quiet area without much happening so if that's you thing, and you're not high on aesthetics (or at least it is not as high on your list as a decent rent) it's a decent place to live.

There are no tourist attractions which is fine because it isn't that easy to get to by train. There is certainly nothing to see here.

At the end of the day, Stuyvesant Town offers nothing more than a place to hang your hat at night and the ability to live in the city within proximity to the better aspects of Lower Manhattan. The rents are okay, the area is mostly quiet. At the same time, there aren't many places to grab some food or a drink and not much entertainment or nightlife to be found anywhere. You're right by East Village though which means not having to go very far to get those things.

Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village jointly make a private residential area on the lower east side of Manhattan. This is quite a historical area, especially with regard to the early days of New York City when the Dutch settled. (Peter Cooper founded Cooper Union where Abraham Lincoln gave a key speech.) The development runs from East 14th to East 23rd Streets and is far on the eastern part of Manhattan from First Avenue to Avenue C in Alphabet City. Stuyvesant Square and Stuyvesant High School are very well-known, and Beth Israel Medical Center is in this area.

They started constructing the current apartment buildings in the 1940s, and they were reasonably priced in the past. There are some larger apartments here, but they're decidedly pricey now thanks to a recent sale of the real estate. One-bedroom units go for about $3,000 and up a month. There's controversy here, too. Lawsuits have been filed because the new landlord is trying to charge higher rents of the current tenants.

Personally, I'm not all that fond of this area and wouldn't want to live here, especially since the controversy really rubs me the wrong way. And now that the rents have become so high, I couldn't consider it if I wanted to.

I don't really get Stuy Town or why these big, ugly impersonal city blocks would be an attractive place to buy a luxury condo. But apparently not everyone agrees with me, for this former low income housing community was bought by Met Life in 2000, with the intention of renovating the rental units for the luxury market and jacking up rent prices accordingly. This plan turned out to be a spectacular failure, as the original tenants resisted eviction, and the plan of converting apartments didn't go quickly enough to pay off the creditors on the purchase loan. As a result, the investors defaulted in January of this year, and Stuy Town is set to remain a rent-stabilized enclave until at least 2017, when it will finally be deregulated. Not quickly enough for Met life, though.

All in all, Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town are an enormous collection of red brick apartment towers that stretch from First Avenue to Avenue C, and cover the area between 14th and 23rd Streets. They are, and they look very much like housing projects, with about 56 residential buildings total. There are about 25,000 residents total, and the towers have their own “peace officers” who police the area.

Stuy Town has been under a lot of scrutiny lately, and I understand why, but what the man is doing over there doesn't really surprise me . . . especially for Manhattan. When I first moved to New York, I looked at an apartment in Stuy Town and I have a number of friends who live there. The neighborhood is not so great. There's a Starbucks, a Blockbuster, a Duane Reade and a McDonalds. That's, seriously, the neighborhood. The rest is just street and it's kind of desolate. But, I can see the appeal of living there, nonetheless. The immediate neighborhood is nothing to sing about but it is in downtown Manhattan so everything is really close and attainable. And, the apartments in Stuy Town / Peter Cooper Village are huge. I don't mean NY huge. They are enormous. They are completely re-done so there isn't a scratch on the wood, a scoff on the stainless steel appliances, a crack in the grout. And, the buildings are really secure. They are really quite nice and the price point isn't that high considering how big and new the spaces are. I know people who live in much smaller apartments for almost twice what the rent is at Stuy Town. And, the apartments accept pets (which is rare), they have concerts in the Stuy Town parks (they have their own parks) and there is concierge, a private gym, and lounges with Wifi. It's really a pretty cush deal even if you aren't one of the lucky few who managed to get a unit before the overhaul. But, I think those rent - controlled lucky ducks are meeting their end -- hence, all the flack that Stuy Town is taking. They're pushing the rent controlled out to redo their apartments and bump the rent up. Again, I don't know why anyone is surprised about this.

If you have an apartment in this middle income housing development, you were doing something right at one point. Nowadays, though residents here are dealing with a lot of changes, and things are looking pretty confusing for them at the moment.

The housing projects were recently sold to real estate mogul Tishman Speyer, and attempts are being made at selling remodeled apartments as "luxury" condos. Currently the Tenants Association find themselves at odds with Tishman Speyer, and many likely face a long legal battle so as not to be driven from their own apartments.

If you completely ignore this conflict, this happens to be a nice neighborhood, close to the relatively quite Gramercy Park and the bustling East Village, there is something for both elderly residents and their fun loving visiting grandchildren.