have you ever been in any of the richard meier buildings around perry street?
they're similarly disastrous.

seen them but never want to set foot in them. I was never a big fan of meier and all his ONE building but now he's just completely sold out. Those building doesn't even look like a meier building. Just another expensive tower without any sort of character. I do like the new Foster building going up in midtown, I've always like Foster and eventhough aesthetically it's not great, but I like the feel of it and his buildings usually try to be sustainable to a certain degree. Plus it doesn't look like anything else around.

is the foster one on 8th ave?

the meier buildings are really cookie cutter. there were also tons of problems with the craftsmanship. someone who owned two asked me to design a modular interior for one. in the end, i convinced him to sell both of the apartments before we did anything. he bought a lautner in LA.

as an aside, i know many people paying $500-600/mo in rent and not living in half-bad situations. it may mean moving in with some strangers off craigslist and having a 2 or 3 roommates, but the horror stories are relatively few and far-between.

a year's worth of monthly unlimited metrocards currently costs $912. commute by bike and that's like a free month of rent for many folks (yeah, it costs money to maintain the bike, but let's assume you're doing that anyway).

assuming you're not doing all your grocery shopping at whole foods, you can eat on a budget and myopenbar.com tells you where to drink for free.

I'm not sure, i think so, it's the hearst headquarters, pretty cool, it's an addition to an existing. A

didn't know you were an architect?

Lautner in LA, that must've been a very rich client, the lautner house, the nicer ones go for a pretty penny. I grew up in LA so anything to do with the case study houses is arch p0rn for me. the meier on the west side isn't just cookie cutter, it has no character, not even a meier character.

Back to OP... places can be had for cheap, especially if you live in a loft with 3-4 other people. I know a lot of people that live in those situations and they seem to like it. Personally I can't live with more than one other person.

also, to the OP: being further out is cheaper, generally. and if you ride a bike the distances won't be a big deal. however, the subway can be horrible for getting to and from far away neighborhoods. especially on weekends and late at night. when your drinking in the city and it's 2am and you have to piss - that 1.5 hour train ride with mutiple detours\delays will absolutely suck. just something to keep in mind.