Love Is Strange

I saw the film Love Is Strange today. It's about an older gay couple, played by John Lithgow and Alfred Molina, who are forced to live apart after Molina's character loses his job at a Catholic school after he marries Lithgow and the school, etc. find out about it. With the loss of income, the couple is no longer able to stay in their Manhattan co-op and are forced to sell it and live apart while they try to find new accommodations. The film should have been titled How New York Real Estate (Nearly) Ruined My Life because that, to me, was the crux of the story. The characters here didn't make a killing when they sold their co-op either. After flip taxes and everything else, they ended up with less than $20,000, a paltry sum that's not nearly enough to put into play in the New York (i.e. Manhattan) real estate market. However, the two men could have found another place to live outside of Manhattan. What about renting in Inwood, Queens, or an unfashionable part of Brooklyn (like Kensington, where I lived)? These options were never explored because then the movie would have been over with in about half an hour.


The movie was sad and funny and the acting was great, but the whole real estate thing just hung over it like a rain cloud. New York real estate is so ridiculous, but also fascinating. The things that people are able to get away with regarding real estate in New York are unbelievable. Apartments that wouldn't even be deemed inhabitable anywhere else are legal and rented in New York. (Or even if they're not legal, they're still rented.) No stove? No problem. Get a hotplate and/or a microwave and go to town. Bathtub in the kitchen? That's a win-win. You can bathe and wash dishes at the same time. Multitasking! Dorm-sized fridge? Wonderful. Who needs to freeze food anyway? Yes, New York is great, but it's not so great when you don't have any money and are living in a room with a toilet, a sink, and a view of a brick wall. (Sounds like a prison; maybe it is.) (For the record, the picture below was my living room in Brooklyn and I didn't think it was a prison [despite the bars on the window by the fire escape]. I thought it was a nice place actually.)