Prospect Heights rents through the years

Most of Brooklyn is going to end up this way.

Subject: Re: Prospect Heights rents through the years

Isa wrote:
1991
Sterling between Vanderbilt and Underhill (closer to Underhill)
3 bedrooms, huge living room, kitchen
$870

= $1227.69 in 2005 after inflation.

Isa wrote:
1996
Bergen and Vanderbilt
2 bedroom railroad, living room, big kitchen (with a dining area),
$700

= $849.68 in 2005 after inflation.

Isa wrote:
1997
Bergen and Vanderbilt
3 bedrooms, huge ass livingroom, huge ass kitchen
$1000

= $1178.47 in 2005 after inflation.

Isa wrote:
2003
St Johns between Underhill and Washington
2 bedrooms, little living room, ok kitchen
$1250 when I moved in, more expensive now.

= $1313.28 in 2005 after inflation.

You're definitely getting less space for your money these days, though it looks less drastic after inflation. Do you think the improvement in the quality of life living here over this 15 year period compensates? (harder to measure, and harder to answer as what we will and won't put up with changes as we age).

Isa wrote:
So basically I can never move again.

Probably not within PH if you're on a fixed income. If your income rises a little faster than inflation, like that of many working people, and the local market enters a lull as all those empty condos convert to empty rentals over the next 2-3 years, you might be pleasantly surprised.

Of course, it should be noted that wages haven't kept up with inflation (as far as I know) lately, so its not that cut and dry. But interesting none-the-less. 8)

When you take into account inflation, you also have to account for a change in the item being purchased. For example, if an Apple IIC cost $500 in 1990 and a modern computer costs $1000 today, you're actually paying far less for what you get, if you take into account the increase of computational power, functionality, etc. etc. etc. The equivalent of a 1990 computer would cost about $5 today, I imagine.

Similarly, an apt in PH or most other nabes in the city in 1990 wasn't what it is today, IMO. In 1990 you were buying a home in a city overrun with crime, with 2,245 murders in that year alone, a subway system fallen completely into disrepair, high unemployment, grafitti everywhere, etc. (in other words, all the things some people on this board wish we still had). Today you are buying into the safest city in the country, one with a thriving restaurant scene in more boroughs than just Manhattan, a hot job market, more retail access than ever, clean and (better) functioning trains, etc. You are also benefiting from private sector improvements like better access to cable TV, wireless access, cell networks, and much more. So 1990 to 2006 is not an apples to apples comparison, even after adjusting for inflation. (I'd further add that using national rates of inflation may not be accurate, since arguably NYC's inflation rate has been much higher than the national average, but I don't have data for that.)

qtrain wrote: [quote=escap]a subway system fallen completely into disrepair, high unemployment, grafitti everywhere

Don't push escap, because he's close to the edge.

Grandmaster Flash wrote: Broken glass everywhere
People pissing on the stairs, you know they just
Dont care
I cant take the smell, I cant take the noise
Got no money to move out, I guess I got no choice
Rats in the front room, roaches in the back
Junkies in the alley with a baseball bat
I tried to get away, but I couldnt get far
Cause the man with the tow-truck repossessed my car
Chorus:
Dont push me, cause Im close to the edge
Im trying not to loose my head
Its like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under

Standing on the front stoop, hangin out the window
Watching all the cars go by, roaring as the breezes
Blow
Crazy lady, livin in a bag
Eating out of garbage piles, used to be a fag-hag
Search and test a tango, skips the life and then go
To search a prince to see the last of senses
Down at the peepshow, watching all the creeps
So she can tell the stories to the girls back home
She went to the city and got so so so ditty
She had to get a pimp, she couldnt make it on her
Own

Chorus:
Its like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder
How I keep from goin under

My brothers doing fast on my mothers t.v.
Says she watches to much, is just not healthy
All my children in the daytime, dallas at night
Cant even see the game or the sugar ray fight
Bill collectors they ring my phone
And scare my wife when Im not home
Got a bum education, double-digit inflation
Cant take the train to the job, theres a strike
At the station
Me on king kong standin on my back
Cant stop to turn around, broke my sacroiliac
Midrange, migraine, cancered membrane
Sometimes I think Im going insane, I swear I might
Hijack a plane!

Chorus:

My son said daddy I dont wanna go to school
Cause the teachers a jerk, he must think Im a
Fool
And all the kids smoke reefer, I think itd be
Cheaper
If I just got a job, learned to be a street sweeper
I dance to the beat, shuffle my feet
Wear a shirt and tie and run with the creeps
Cause its all about money, aint a damn thing
Funny
You got to have a con in this land of milk and
Honey
They push that girl in front of a train
Took her to a doctor, sowed the arm on again
Stabbed that man, right in his heart
Gave him a transplant before a brand new start
I cant walk through the park, cause its crazy
After the dark
Keep my hand on the gun, cause they got me on the
Run
I feel like an outlaw, broke my last fast jaw
Hear them say you want some more, livin on a
Seesaw

Chorus:

A child was born, with no state of mind
Blind to the ways of mankind
God is smiling on you but hes frowning too
Cause only God knows what you go through
You grow in the ghetto, living second rate
And your eyes will sing a song of deep hate
The places you play and where you stay
Looks like one great big alley way
Youll admire all the number book takers
Thugs, pimps, pushers and the big money makers
Driving big cars, spending twenties and tens
And you wanna grow up to be just like them
Smugglers, scrambles, burglars, gamblers
Pickpockets, peddlers and even pan-handlers
You say Im cool, Im no fool
But then you wind up dropping out of high school
Now youre unemployed, all null n void
Walking around like youre pretty boy floyd
Turned stickup kid, look what you done did
Got send up for a eight year bid
Now your man is took and youre a may tag
Spend the next two years as an undercover fag
Being used and abused, and served like hell
Till one day you was find hung dead in a cell
It was plain to see that your life was lost
You was cold and your body swung back and forth
But now your eyes sing the sad sad song
Of how you lived so fast and died so young

Chorus:

qtrain wrote: Paul Nice dub remix

Interesting, and that site is cool. But the original is still the best!

doctorj wrote: [quote=Carnivore][quote=qtrain]Paul Nice dub remix

Interesting, and that site is cool. But the original is still the best!

Agreed.

Carnivore wrote:

[Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five]

So who is the mysterious seventh man?maybe two of them are siamese :P or who ever came up with the name cant count.