Making His New York Debut in Hoboken with Six Roommates.
For his first home in the city, an aspiring actor finds that New York is a hellscape that is completely unaffordable to anyone without a trust fund.
Shortly after graduating from the Pacific University for Exceptional Young Men in the Town-Where-They-Filmed-“Twilight,” Wa., Benjamin Zass returned home to the whitest part of Connecticut and prepared to head to New York to pursue a career in acting, writing, and healing America’s racial issues by using puppets that sing Negro spirituals.
He briefly considered living in Astoria, Queens — where a lot of his friends were moving because…money — before he realized it would take him over 30 minutes to get into Manhattan, and who has time for that?
“I really wanted to be in the heart of the city, just right in the middle of the action,” said Mr. Zass, 23. Specifically, he wanted to be near Times Square, the Village and Central Park, three parts of the city that are nowhere near each other.
For his new home, his requirements included excellent city views, a gym, a live-in maid to do his laundry/dishes/read him bedtime stories, and — most importantly — a doorman named Michael. Not Mike. Not Mickey. Michael.
“Michael was the name of our family’s groundskeeper when I was a kid,” Mr. Zass explained. “He was also my best friend.”
Unlike some of his friends, he had no nearby relatives to stay with and his father wouldn’t let him stay at his apartment on the Upper East Side because that’s where he went to cheat on Benjamin’s mother during the week. So, while staying with a college friend who secretly hated his guts, Mr. Zass began his search for a more permanent home.
In late spring — widely known to be the worst possible time to look for an apartment — with a rental budget of $1,000 (because his family was rich, but not “RICH rich,” ya know? More comfortable, than rich…), Mr. Zass reached out to a number of realtors who abruptly hung up on him before finding Lois Lanahan, the real estate equivalent of a used-car salesman.
“I could tell this kid had absolutely no idea what he was doing,” said Ms. Lanahan of Lanahan/Trump Realty. “That’s what I like to call my sweet spot.”
Ms. Lanahan first showed Mr. Zass a lovely, two-bedroom loft in SoHo that met every one of his needs, except the Michael thing.
“He was disappointed about the doorman situation,” said Ms. Lanahan, whose real estate license is currently under review as a result of a tax issue that she wasn’t at liberty to discuss. “But everything else was great.”
That’s when Mr. Zass realized that the apartment cost $11,000 a month and Ms. Lanahan’s broker fee was a “slightly-above-average” 43 percent of a year’s rent, or $56,760.
After a phone call to his father quickly went nowhere (“He said ‘Are you out of your mind? Also, if your mom asks, tell her I’m in Chicago until Wednesday,’” said Mr. Zass.), he decided to forge ahead on his own.
He parted ways with Ms. Lanahan (*Update: Ms. Lanahan is currently standing trial for several counts of tax fraud and collusion with the Russian government.*) and began to search for something more in his price range.
After several days of searching through popular apartment-hunting websites like StreetEasy and ApartmentGuide — as well as one attempt at typing “can i have an apartment, please?” into AskJeeves.com — Mr. Zass quickly realized that his budget was just a bit too small for his ideal living situation.
“I did find a guy on Craigslist who agreed to rent me the spare bedroom in his place on the Upper West Side,” said Mr. Zass. “But he also wanted me to do all this weird sex stuff that I wasn’t super comfortable with. So I had to pass.”
It was then that Mr. Zass got some advice that changed the whole nature of his search.
“I was at an EPA one morning, waiting for an appointment even though they specifically said multiple times that they weren’t seeing non-Eqs that day,” said Mr. Zass. “I was talking at this girl and telling her all about my housing troubles. Eventually, she took the earbuds out of her ears and said ‘Get. Roommates.’ Just like that.”
Mr. Zass recalls this being a sort of lightbulb moment for him. He began to seek out more advice from his friends and other artists living in the city.
“I started talking to my friends and I discovered that not everybody was having their apartments paid for by their parents,” explained Mr. Zass. “That a lot of actors and artists here actually have to pay for everything on their own. That’s why they have to get day-jobs and live with a bunch of roommates and stuff. That was really eye-opening for me.”
He began to seek out more affordable options, going to look at spare bedrooms and sub-lets in Inwood, Brooklyn and, yes, even Astoria.
Along the way, his search led him not only to a deeper understanding of New York City real estate, but to a larger understanding of his own privilege.
“Have you heard of this ‘privilege,’ thing?” Mr. Zass asked, before pausing for a moment to order a bottle of organic hemp protein off of Amazon. “It’s crazy. Some people just have, like, a leg up to start off with. And, actually, it’s kind of this crisis right now where the only young artists who can afford to pursue creative careers come from a lot of wealth. Who knew?”
Mr. Zass viewed quite a few potential apartments over the next few weeks, including one that he described as more of a “tent-situation” where a group of about a dozen recent graduates of the Tisch School at NYU were squatting in the middle of Washington Square Park.
“Once I started to see how people actually live in New York, things really changed,” said Mr. Zass. “I started to think about all the advantages I had growing up, and how maybe if I wanted to make it as an artist, I needed to compromise on some stuff.”
Eventually, he settled on renting a room in a four-bedroom apartment in Hoboken, N.J., living with six other people.
“Theo and Jing are a couple, so they share a bedroom,” Mr. Zass explained. “Doug and Dave were roommates in college, so they share a sleeping bag in the bathtub most nights.
“It is tough with seven people all trying to use one bathroom and one kitchenette and one toothbrush,” he continued. “But we figure it out.”
His current living situation does come with one unexpected perk.
“One of my roommates is named Michael!” said Mr. Zass with a laugh. “Well, he prefers Mike, but he lets me call him Michael sometimes. It’s awesome!”
Mr. Zass recently got a job waiting tables at Brother Jimmy’s, a chain restaurant in Manhattan popular with young Wall Street-types and other assorted douchebags. He describes the job as “not great.”
The commute from Hoboken is a long one, but Mr. Zass is committed to going into Manhattan every day to audition. He has since abandoned his puppetry work, however.
“This city is tough, man,” Mr. Zass explained between sips of a $14 green juice. “I’m lucky my parents are helping me with rent, otherwise I’d be really screwed.” (*Update: Mr. Zass’ parents have recently filed for divorce.*)
“I guess all I can do is recognize the privileges I’ve got and try to do my best,” he said with a smile.
And with that, he excused himself to head to the Apple store to buy a new iPhone because his current one “smelled weird.”
