Couple Spend $1 Million To Live In Bed-Stuy Because It Reminds Them Of Gritty LES
July 3, 2013, 11 a.m.
“It reminds us of what the Lower East Side used to be like; that is why we bought there,” said Mara Singer, without any indication of self-awareness.
This classic "American Gentrifier" magazine cover from 2005 has been cropped to better reflect the baby-less couple below
A couple who miss the good old bad days of the Lower East Side have spent the exorbitant price of $1 million to move into an apartment in Bed-Stuy. “It reminds us of what the Lower East Side used to be like; that is why we bought there,” said Mara Singer, who represents fashion and still-life photographers. If only the couple's friends could see the idealized neighborhood that they see, where that rundown old health clinic is turned into a tattoo parlor, and that Last Supper mural is replaced with one featuring Radiohead or a stylized corporate octopus.
These pioneers of gentrification, Singer and photographer husband David, have bought a two-bedroom, two-bath penthouse duplex on Lexington Avenue, which includes a 600-square-foot private roof deck. According to the Post, this was a record-setting price for an apartment in the neighborhood, although Singer noted, "it is still so much cheaper than Manhattan in so many ways."
"We have been living on and off [on] the Lower East Side for 25 years," Singer said. "We do love it, but Soho House is coming, the neighborhood is changing and it is just different. We like the old Lower East Side." Yeah, things really haven't been the same down there ever since those kickball leagues invaded the neighborhood, displacing all the heroin addicts and gangs.
"We are loft people, but the new one is a more industrial, raw space," Singer said. "It’s not overdone, over-renovated and sanitized. It still has the old New York flavor, which doesn’t happen anymore,” she added, without any indication of self-awareness.
The only thing that could make this story any better is if the four-story condo building used to be, like, a frozen-food factory or something...which it was. “It still has the magic,” Singer said. “They didn’t get rid of the beauty. They left a lot of it, which is what is so amazing.” As we always say, nostalgia is death unless it involves converted frozen-food factories.
