When the housing bubble burst across the country in 2008-2009, prices plummeted and, in many areas, there were more empty houses than people. This was a bad thing for sellers, as home values were down, but good for buyers and renters, who had plenty of opportunities to choose from.
In the decade since, there has been a significant recovery in most areas. The issue is that in cities where people want to live, there are not enough houses to accommodate the growing workforce, and prices are high.
This is fine if you are a seller, or even a buyer with good credit. If you are a renter,though, the market is tough, and the entry level price of a house is also rising. The dreaded Adjustable Rate Mortgage is making somewhat of a comeback as those who are less fortunate are trying to find a way to afford a home.
Low-income housing is at a premium and hard to get into, with waiting lists as long as a year. Other housing dominates family incomes, forcing them to make some hard choices. Here are some of the effects of the rising costs of housing on consumer credit.
Less Disposable Income
The general rule of thumb is that your housing should not cost more than 1/3 of your income. However, for many Americans who are low income or lower middle class, that number is closer to fifty percent. This means that those families have less disposable income.
In a consumer-based economy, this is a real problem. The less consumers consume, the less profit companies make, and the fewer employees they need. Or the hours of the least essential employees are cut, meaning those families make even less money. This s a vicious cycle. There are other issues though, ones that then impact credit even more than just lower income.
The Roommate Dilemma
One “solution” to the cost of housing is to take on roommates. This comes with risks as well as rewards, but it is hard to tell sometimes which is greater. First, rooms for rent gives those with lower income places to live that are more affordable. It does help them, but it creates other social and personal tensions.
For the homeowner, the roommate situation can help financially at least on a temporary basis. However, if the homeowner then becomes dependent on the income from that roommate, and the renter leaves, the budget is once again wrecked. This dependence on this kind of situation creates other issues for the homeowner, including increased utilities, potential damages, and the lack of privacy. The financial risk can potentially affect their personal credit.
The roommate is often not building credit or real rental history. When they eventually move, the landlord is more of a personal reference, and they have not been paying full rent, making it harder to prove they can afford a place on their own. Their credit can be potentially impacted as well.
Less Savings
Less disposable income and more spent on housing means families have less to save both for emergencies and for pleasure and large purchases. This can lead to some bad credit habits. For instance, a family might use a credit card for these purchases instead. If their credit is already not good, they may get a card with lower limits and higher interest rates.
This makes them more likely to “max out” a card, which impacts credit score due to how little available credit they have. This also makes them more susceptible to the dangers of a financial emergency. Without available credit or savings, they can hardly weather an emergency car repair or similar issues without taking out a personal loan, and using that money to cover their expensesand therefore creating more debt.
Borrowing to Live
The other danger in high housing costs is that often those who are spending too much on housing must borrow to live. Gas cards, store cards like those offered by WalMart, and other credit cards are used to cover everyday expenses, while at the end of the month the user is only able to make the minimum payment.
This means the credit balance is rising while the limit is not, again creating issues. If the credit card user misses a payment or two, their score drops even more, making it less likely they will get more credit to help them survive.
The Toughest Choice
The toughest choice comes in the area of health. Many will have to choose between going to the doctor and paying for prescriptions or paying for housing and food. The result is an unhealthy spiral. The person spending too much on housing will not pay medical bills, further impacting their credit.
Being underinsured and unable to afford healthcare, they are less likely to go to the doctor when they need to. Also, since for the most part, eating healthy costs more at least in the short term, they are unlikely to take as good of care of themselves, which promotes more unhealthy behaviors. Those who need the doctor more and need to be healthier are unable to afford to do so.
If they do stretch themselves, go to a doctor appointment or hospital they cannot afford, and then don’t pay due to high housing costs, their credit score goes down again. They cycle never seems to end.
What is the solution? Communities must plan for low to moderate income housing so that workers have an affordable place to live. Renters and buyers alike must be careful not to take on more than they can reasonably pay for housing, and if they do, to have an alternate plan in case something goes wrong.
The rising cost of housing has a huge impact on consumer credit, and if we don’t address it soon, we’ll have another housing crisis on our hands.
Fantasy football is about to get considerably more stylish. This fall, The Addison, one of Midtown’s newest dining and nightlife destinations, is teaming up with Sleeper to give New York’s fantasy football crowd something it has desperately needed: a home field that doesn’t involve balancing wings on your laptop while yelling at a television over somebody else’s questionable draft pick.
Beginning Thursday, September 10, The Addison will launch Sleeper Thursdays, a weekly Thursday Night Football series combining the fantasy sports platform with an actual game-day destination. Think less neighborhood sports bar, more fantasy football with velvet seating, crafted cocktails and a 28-day dry-aged burger.
Located at 214 West 39th Street, The Addison was designed as a hybrid sports lounge and supper club, pairing large-format television screens with deep cobalt interiors, Art Deco gold detailing, marble and velvet. In other words, this is where you can obsess over your quarterback while maintaining a certain amount of dignity.
Throughout the season, guests who show the Sleeper app on their phones will unlock special food and beverage offerings, while QR codes around The Addison will allow newcomers to download the app and join in immediately. Dedicated Sleeper specials will include select food and drink pricing, shareable platters, group packages and branded giveaways. Better still, the game-day specials won’t be limited to Thursday nights; they’ll be available whenever NFL or college football is being played.
And then there are the drafts.
The Addison will become a home base for fantasy football draft parties, with groups able to run their Sleeper drafts directly from the venue while taking advantage of dedicated food and beverage packages. This seems infinitely more civilized than gathering around someone’s kitchen table while one member of the league takes 17 minutes to make a pick everyone else knows is terrible.
Sleeper has built its following by making fantasy sports particularly social, combining fantasy leagues and real-time updates with league chats and interactive game-day features. The Addison partnership essentially takes that digital clubhouse and gives it a physical address—along with someone else to make the drinks and clean up afterward.
The collaboration will continue beyond the games themselves with social content, Reels, giveaways, branded swag, behind-the-scenes moments and special programming throughout the football season. The idea is to create a recurring community rather than another bar promotion that disappears after opening weekend.
The Addison has the menu to make lingering through four quarters fairly painless. Its current offerings include East Coast oysters, braised short rib tacos, a Maine lobster roll and that dry-aged burger, alongside cocktails, wine, beer and mocktails.
New York has never lacked places to watch football. What makes this partnership interesting is that The Addison isn’t trying to become another sports bar. It is taking the rituals that already surround fantasy football—the draft, the trash talk, the statistical obsession, the triumphs, the catastrophically bad trades—and giving them a more polished place to happen.
So assemble the league, charge the phone and prepare your excuses for whatever disastrous decision you make in Week One.
Fantasy football has officially come off the couch and apparently, it has discovered Midtown.
The joy that arrives when very famous, very fit athletes are handed a spoon, a mountain of toppings and permission to be silly is particularly giddy. That was indeed the mood on Tuesday evening at The Parliament, tucked inside the marble-and-cream elegance of The Benjamin Royal Sonesta in Midtown East, where US Open Fan Week kicked off with with a serve of scoops. Ice cream, that is.
Players Flavio Cobolli, Matteo Arnaldi, Elena Rybakina and Karen Khachanov attended The Pros Serve at The Parliament, The Benjamin Royal Sonesta’s signature restaurant, while celebrating the arrival of the US Open to NYC.
The invitation promised “a fun night off the court” and for once, the invitation undersold the event. Top-seeded pros Elena Rybakina, Flavio Cobolli, Karen Khachanov, Paula Badosa, and Matteo Arnaldi turned up for a friendly ice cream sundae challenge and the room, predictably, lost its collective mind.
Flavio Cobolli, direct from his win over Serena Williams, and Matteo Arnaldi dish up the fun. Photo Gabi Porter for The Parliament.
The Parliament’s usual luxe hush gave way to full tennis regalia: a leafy step-and-repeat backdrop stood sentinel for the selfie set, rackets ready to prop.
The Benjamin Royal Sonesta Hotel hosted “The Pros Serve”, a US Open fan week event at The Parliament. Photo courtesy Gabi Porter.
Evian — impossibly, twenty years old now — kept the room hydrated with an endless supply of sparkling and still, glass bottles only, thank you very much.
The Honey Deuce
The signature Honey Deuce (Grey Goose, raspberry liqueur, and a little summer sass) flowed alongside a sprightly elderberry mocktail for those pacing themselves before Queens.
The Parliament’s beefy sliders.
Parliament’s kitchen did not hold back. Beefy sliders, chicken satay skewers, arancini crisped to crowd-pleasing perfection, and an impossibly delicate rice paper–wrapped shrimp number circulated in waves, punctuated by the requisite melon balls. The parade of passed plates was so thoroughly delightful that T2C’s own editrix Suzanna Bowling declared, on the spot, that Parliament’s restaurant program deserves a feature all its own. Consider it assigned.
A DJ spun an optimistic, ’80s-tinged set before shifting into full East Harlem–style hype mode, complete with a mohawked break dancer in pink satin Lacoste tearing up the floor. The midtown crowd, pleasantly lubricated, found itself moving in something resembling rhythm.
Break points on the dance floor.
Enter the Pros
Then came the moment everyone was waiting for: the athletes filed in to a bright pink wave of tennis towels, monogrammed and ready, and the Sundae Scoop Down officially began.
“The Ice Queen” aka Grand Champion Elena Rybakina, melts sweetly for US Open fans. Photo courtesy Gabi Porter for The Parliament.
What followed was chaos in the best possible sense. Chocolate piled onto vanilla with real abandon. Great gobs of marshmallow fluff appeared and reappeared. A stray strawberry crowded out the Oreo crumbles. Someone made a genuinely questionable case for caramel-drenched pineapple. Joy, it turned out, is a universal language and it was shouted in several of them at once.
Artist David Brooks
“For someone known as ‘The Ice Queen,’ Elena Rybakina sure is smiling a lot!” observed artist David Brooks, watching the two-time Grand Slam champion build her creation with unmistakable delight. He wasn’t wrong — there was no trace of competitive tension in the room, just whooping fans and athletes who seemed genuinely thrilled to be judged on sprinkles instead of serve speed.
Karen Khachanov paused mid-sundae, repeatedly, to pose for photos with fans who clearly weren’t going to get a better opportunity. Matteo Arnaldi arrived fashionably late, having just come off another win on the Queens courts — proof that a title match and a fluff explosion can, in fact, coexist on the same day.
Screaming for ice cream.
The pros’ signature sundaes won’t be a one-night novelty. Per the event’s organizers, each player’s creation will land on The Parliament’s menu for the full run of the US Open, so anyone who missed the live spoon-to-spoon combat can still taste the sweet results.
It was, happily in the end, exactly what the invitation promised: top-ranked athletes, off the clock, being unapologetically human over ice cream, Honey Deuces and a whole lotta love.
“The Pros Serve” was held Tuesday, August 25, from 6–8 PM at The Parliament at The Benjamin Royal Sonesta, 125 East 50th Street, as part of US Open Fan Week.
New York has never been particularly interested in the idea that dogs should stay home while the humans have all the fun. On Wednesday, August 26, National Dog Day gives the city’s four-legged social set an excellent excuse to hit the town, with restaurants rolling out treats, swag, special menus and a proper Yappy Hour. Frankly, considering how many New York dogs have better wardrobes and social calendars than the rest of us, it seems only fair.
At Loulou, 176 Eighth Avenue, National Dog Day takes over the restaurant’s outdoor cabana beginning at 11 a.m., turning it into a celebration for pups and their people. Humans can settle in with a specialty Tito’s cocktail while their companions discover that “dog food” has taken on an entirely different meaning in Chelsea.
Loulou already has a dedicated dog-friendly menu, and these are not exactly scraps from the table. Four-legged diners can choose from Steak & Eggs, Grilled Chicken, Seared Salmon and the “Loulou” Burger, followed by a “Pup”sicle made with yogurt, peanut butter, banana and apple. Somewhere, a Labrador is currently wondering why every Wednesday isn’t National Dog Day.
There’s also a little something to take home. Every dog arriving with an owner beginning at 11 a.m. will receive a complimentary swag bag filled with Tito’s branded toys or accessories, additional dog toys and treats, while supplies last.
For pups whose tastes run more café chic than cocktail hour, Loulou is also partnering with Isshiki. Guests purchasing a matcha will receive a complimentary Pup-Cha for their dog—a pup-friendly cup of whipped cream topped with green spirulina. Because apparently even the dogs have entered their matcha era.
Downtown, Clinton Hall FiDi, at 90 Washington Street, is answering National Dog Day with an all-day Yappy Hour beginning at 11:30 a.m. Bring your dog and the humans receive happy-hour pricing throughout the day, including $6 draft beers, $7 well drinks and house wines, and $8 select bites. The guest of honor gets a complimentary dog treat or branded bandana while supplies last.
The restaurant’s Supercraft beer program will also be flowing, while Giant Jenga, Giant Connect 4, chess, Uno, Cards Against Humanity and other complimentary games provide entertainment for the humans. The dogs, naturally, will be busy doing what dogs do best: meeting everyone, investigating everything and quietly determining which table presents the greatest possibility of dropped food.
National Dog Day began as a celebration of dogs and a reminder of the enormous number still waiting in shelters for homes. There is something rather wonderful, then, about giving the dogs already sharing our lives a day devoted entirely to them. They ask surprisingly little of us considering what they give back: food, walks, somewhere comfortable to sleep and the occasional opportunity to accompany us somewhere far more interesting than the living-room sofa.
On August 26, New York is giving them the good table. Really, hasn’t your dog earned it?
I am not particularly good at routines. There, I said it. I admire people who appear to have their lives organized into neat little compartments: wake at a certain hour, exercise, meditate, take their vitamins, eat precisely what their bodies need and somehow arrive at the rest of the day looking composed. I have never quite been that person. My days have a tendency to take on lives of their own.
Getting ready for fall has made me realize something. A routine does not have to mean turning your life into a schedule. It means deciding that certain things matter enough that you are no longer going to negotiate with yourself about them every single day. There are vitamins I know I need to take, so I have decided they need to become part of my day rather than something I remember when I happen to see the bottle. After being on so many antibiotics, I want to eat yogurt every day to help replenish what those medications have disrupted. I have a trampoline, and I need to get on it. Not for an hour. Not because I suddenly intend to become an Olympic athlete. Five minutes counts. Fifteen minutes is terrific. What matters is that my body moves and that I do it again tomorrow.
None of these things is revolutionary. That is precisely the point.
We have made changing our lives far too dramatic. We announce enormous goals, buy equipment, download apps, create schedules we could never realistically maintain and then feel that we have failed when the elaborate new life collapses under the weight of the life we were already living.
A useful routine should fit your actual life. That means looking at yourself without fantasy. When do you really wake up? When do you have energy? What are you consistently forgetting? What makes you feel better when you actually do it? What have you been telling yourself for months that you need to start doing? Then make it smaller. If you cannot exercise for an hour, move for ten minutes. If ten feels impossible today, move for five. Five minutes done every day has more power than the perfect 45-minute workout you keep promising yourself you will begin next Monday.
The same principle applies far beyond exercise. It can mean taking your supplements with breakfast instead of relying on memory. Putting ten minutes aside each evening to put things back where they belong. Drinking water when you first get up. Reading instead of automatically reaching for the phone. Preparing tomorrow’s clothes tonight. Going outside every day. Calling someone you love. Writing one page. Doing one thing that consistently makes your life work better.
Routine becomes powerful when the argument disappears. You stop asking, Do I feel like doing this today? You simply do it because it has become part of the architecture of your life.
That is very different from discipline as punishment. A good routine is an act of respect toward your future self. The person you will be tomorrow benefits from what you quietly do today. The person you will be in October is being constructed by what you repeat in August. Repetition is where transformation actually happens. Fall itself understands this.
By January, you won’t need a resolution. You’ll already be living it.
Labor Day weekend always arrives with a strange mixture of celebration and denial. Technically, summer isn’t over. Emotionally, however, New Yorkers know exactly what the weekend means. The white shoes are living on borrowed time, evenings are beginning to arrive earlier, and somewhere in the distance September is already sharpening its pencils. Before we surrender to fall, New York is giving us one final long weekend—and there are some wonderful ways to spend it.
For music lovers, begin at Lincoln Center, where The Metropolitan Opera’s 17th annual Summer HD Festival returns to Josie Robertson Plaza from September 2 through September 7. Approximately 2,500 seats are available each evening on a first-come, first-served basis, no tickets or reservations are required, and the screenings include open captions. Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts becomes particularly magical on late-summer evenings, and watching grand opera projected outdoors as the city darkens around you is one of those experiences that reminds you why living in New York can still be extraordinary.
The festival opens Wednesday, September 2 at 8 p.m. with Act I of Wagner’s monumental Tristan und Isolde, followed Thursday at 8 p.m. by Acts II and III. Friday brings Bellini’s I Puritani at 7:30 p.m., followed Saturday at 8 p.m. by Tchaikovsky’s exquisitely romantic Eugene Onegin. Sunday offers something decidedly different with Gabriela Lena Frank’s El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego, a magical-realist reunion of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera set around the Day of the Dead. What could possibly be more appropriate for the unofficial farewell to summer than ending with heartbreak?
On Labor Day itself, September 7 at 8 p.m., the festival concludes with Puccini’s La Bohème. Parisian garrets, starving artists, impossible love and one of opera’s most devastating endings—under the Manhattan stars and completely free.
For something considerably brassier, head to Bryant Park on Friday, September 4 from 7 to 9:30 p.m., when Bryant Park Picnic Performances presents its first festival devoted to all things brass. Two-time Grammy nominee New Breed Brass Band headlines the free evening alongside Aberdeen and New York’s all-female Brass Queens. Bring your own blanket or snag one of Bryant Park’s on a first-come, first-served basis, find yourself a piece of lawn and let Manhattan become New Orleans for a couple of hours.
Then, on Labor Day evening, Bryant Park changes personalities again. The lawn becomes an enormous outdoor movie theatre for a free screening of the wonderfully ridiculous 1999 sci-fi comedy Galaxy Quest. The lawn opens for picnicking at 5 p.m., with Hester Street Fair food vendors beginning at 4 p.m. Arrive early, claim your territory and settle in beneath the skyscrapers.
There is something particularly delicious about watching a movie outdoors in Midtown. Cars are honking a block away, office towers surround you, somebody’s picnic invariably becomes considerably more elaborate than yours—and then darkness falls and several thousand strangers collectively disappear into a movie.
Maybe you want to spend Labor Day weekend somewhere that doesn’t feel remotely like Midtown. Then get on the ferry. From September 5 through September 7, the Richmond County Fair takes over Historic Richmond Town, transforming 25 acres into one of New York City’s most wonderfully old-fashioned end-of-summer traditions.
This isn’t merely a carnival dropped onto an empty parking lot. Historic Richmond Town is an extraordinary open-air museum containing 38 historic structures, with the site’s history reaching deep into Staten Island’s past. The modern Richmond County Fair dates to 1980, while the tradition behind it reaches back to the 19th century.
For three days, costumed historical interpreters bring that world back to life through demonstrations of blacksmithing, tinsmithing, carpentry, hearth cooking and basket making, alongside hands-on crafts and living-history presentations. Then history collides rather wonderfully with the county fair.
There are carnival rides, games, pony rides, face painting, aerialists, a butterfly vivarium and more than 100 local vendors selling crafts, antiques and the sort of food for which nutritional information should probably remain confidential until Tuesday. Naturally, there are eating contests. Hot dogs, Chicken wings, Pie, because apparently merely eating fair food wasn’t sufficiently competitive.
There is also a three-day music festival featuring Staten Island bands, DJs and tribute acts, while the Staten Island Culture Crawl near the entrance introduces visitors to local arts, cultural and community organizations.
The fair runs noon to 8 p.m. Saturday, September 5 through Monday, September 7, with general admission currently listed at $15, $12 for seniors 65 and older, $7 for children ages 3–11, and free admission for children under three. Proceeds support Historic Richmond Town’s preservation and educational work. That makes the Richmond County Fair particularly appealing. You aren’t merely buying admission to another festival. You’re helping preserve a physical piece of New York history.
This Labor Day weekend is the moment to resist doing what we New Yorkers so often do: staying home because everywhere will be crowded, complaining that summer disappeared too quickly and promising ourselves we’ll do all these things next year.
Go hear Wagner under the stars. Dance to a brass band in Bryant Park. Pack a picnic and watch Galaxy Quest surrounded by skyscrapers. Take the ferry to Staten Island, watch somebody forge something the way it might have been done more than a century ago, ride something mildly inadvisable and eat something even more inadvisable.
Summer is leaving whether we approve or not. We might as well give it a proper New York goodbye.