Green Homes!
90 foot New York apartment makes tenant a celebrity?
[Apr. 2]
What do you do when you’re a poor writer, perhaps a wannabe green celebrity, and you live in Manhattan? The big city is not necessarily known for its green lifestyle except to superstars like Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, and Catherine Zeta-Jones. And even these green celebrity superstars have recently listed homes in New York for sale. Feeling the crunch perhaps?
In spite of the odds, writer Felice Cohen decided she wanted to live in Manhattan — Upper West Side Manhattan, in fact. But she didn’t have the $3,600 a month that a rental property in Manhattan typically costs. So, with the help of a friend, she made the best of it, landing a 90 square foot (12×7) microstudio for just over $700 a month.
In a video she has made, Felice Cohen, who also touts herself as a professional organizer, knows how to go green when it comes to making the most out of such a small place. This aspiring (and inspiring!) green celebrity has just a combination desk and shelf lining one wall, cleverly packed with plastic containers housing all her goodies, including a mini-refrigerator, a toaster oven (where she keeps her bananas), and the computer she writes from. Cabinet space above and below hold her kitchenware, which includes a hot pot and her dishes and utensils, since she the microstudio has no kitchen.
Cohen took off the sliding closet doors, which were just behind the fornt door, to make some more room and this would-be green celebrity keeps up a tasteful curtain instead. She has a loft style bed less than two feet from the ceiling (yikes!) and admits to having a bit of a panic attack the first night in her new digs. But after installing a handrail to the bed, she finds the setup quite cozy now. She also keeps a sofa chair by the window in her “living room” for comfort.
She says her father, a bankruptcy attorney, is part of her inspiration. Felice Cohen said she learned early in life to have no more than what she actually can afford. She said she has had to do away with some of her books, though she keeps a small library at the head of her bed, and she says her modest wardrobe is more than she really wears, generally.
The kicker? Cohen has been at this just-a-year microstudio for three years, and she shows no signs of moving. She says her friends often prefer to hang out at her microstudio because they find it more cozy there, and the aspiring green celebrity jokes that when she visits home, she goes into her closet just to feel more cozy. She loves the view in her Manhattan microstudio, and she’s just a block away from Central Park.
Going green has never been cheaper for downtown living.