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New York is known as one of the most expensive cities to live in the world. In Manhattan, for example, renting a one-bedroom apartment costs an average of $4,000 a month, according to a report by real estate agencies Samuel Miller and Douglas Elliman. Nevertheless, a 27-year-old man managed to make his dream of living near the big city come true without exhausting his finances.
Sampson Dahl lives in a place that until 2005 had functioned as a laundry and, before, as a bar. His space has been called “the strangest apartment in New York,” but that doesn’t seem to take away his sleep. Instead, she enjoys paying less than $2,000 a month to live 30 minutes from Central Park.
“The whole place is divided into stages and many of these are places to sit, but they look in a different direction. The idea is that you can easily have a collective or individual interaction, ”Dahl explained to YouTuber Caleb Simpson, who recently visited him to record a video of his peculiar home.
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A young man turned an old New York laundromat into his home
In the video You can see the site full of curious artifacts and posters, including the one announcing the previous business line of business. In his talk, Dahl admitted that almost everything he owns in his apartment was free thanks to his work as a set designer. Other objects were gifts from neighbors. “It’s like being in a character’s room, the whole place is different,” the young man acknowledged.
The former laundromat in Maspeth, Queens, is about a 30-minute drive from the heart of Manhattan. Dahl found an opportunity to rent the space in 2019but before a couple had already used it and had even made the first modifications, to install the kitchen and bathroom.
When he arrived at the place he was only paying $1,750 a month for rentbut in 2021, with the effects of the post-pandemic, the cost went up; now it is $1850. The amount is still interesting, considering that New York is one of the most expensive cities in the world, where rents went up more than 20% last yearaccording to the real estate portal StreetEasy.com.
In it video de YouTube, which accumulates more than half a million reproductions, the young inhabitant of the peculiar New York space affirms that the door is always open. Besides, he offered his neighbors the use of a washing machine, which still works.
Dahl acknowledged that what he likes most about living in the old laundry room is that it becomes a reference in the community and that reminds him of his childhood in Texas. “People are more aware of me than myself, and that is a true community. I knew that feeling as a child, and I know it again now, ”she said in an interview with the blog Make It of CNBC.
At the entrance to the site, he placed a refrigerator and a swing. From his perspective, although he likes his space, intends to move to another, more prepared, when his income is sufficient.
THE NATION
