Anecdotes : A Tale of Two Apartments
A 1928 drawing by Clarence D. Batchelor. How do the two experiences compare? What are the benefits and costs of each of these lifestyles?
Over the past few years, I've had two very different living experiences. The first, a 48th floor apartment in the Financial District of New York City. The second, a first floor flat in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I loved living in each of these apartments immensely, but the differences between the two have taught me a great deal about verticality and its effects on our lives.
Consider the first apartment. It existed far from the surface of the earth. It was up in the sky, full of light and air. The views were amazing and the sunsets were breathtaking. Over time, however, I began to notice the negative effects of living so far from the surface. I loved the views that the apartment provided, but other than the daily oscillations of light and dark, the view was largely unchanging. It was almost as if there was a light-emitting, dynamic painting right outside the windows. The view on move-out day was nearly the same as it was when I moved in, save for another building built here or there on the skyline. There was also a sense that I was no longer part of the city, but floating above it. The apartment was so high above the street, when I looked down at the activity below it felt abstracted. In a way, it ceased to be real. It was like a show or game happening far away from me, disconnected from my own experience above. When I stood on the street and looked up at the building, it was difficult for me to reconcile the world below with the world above. I knew my apartment was up there, but I couldn't connect the two in my head.
The isolation of the views was amplified by the isolation of the apartment itself. I didn't know any of my neighbors. The few times I attempted to interact with others, it felt forced. Additionally, getting to and from home was a chore. In order to get from apartment to street, I'd have to leave the front door to my apartment, wait in a lift lobby, enter said lift, wait inside, exit into the building lobby, pass through a revolving door, walk down a few steps, then I'd finally be at the surface. The costs of this reliance on the lift were made crystal clear on one occasion when the high-rise lifts were out of service. I ended up having to take the mid-rise lifts part of the way, and climb the rest via stairs. The interesting part of that experience? I felt as if I'd actually earned the height of the apartment for once, much like a mountain climber feels after reaching the summit. The daily experience of taking the lift had trivialized the experience of height that the apartment provided. Before modern times and the invention of the lift, in order to experience a high place a person would have to walk or climb up to it. This meant height was earned due to the climb it took to get up there. As such, the extra effort I put in by taking the stairs oddly made the view more worth it for me, like I had achieved it because of the physical effort.
Living in that apartment made me begin to wonder about the experience of it. What was I trying to escape from? Why was I actively removing myself from the city below? Why do so many people want to live in these types of apartments when they result in isolation from the surrounding city?[1]
The answers are quite simple, to be fair. Higher apartments have better access to light and air, have better views, and are quieter. These elements are at a premium in many of our cities because they are no longer present at street level. Most cities have grown so dense that the street-level experience is one that people actually do need to escape from. Manhattan's Financial District is no exception. Most of the streets lack clean air, ample light, and are quite noisy. Aside from these factors, high places also carry status for their occupants. Living and/or working higher means you pay more for it, and nearly all tall buildings charge more for space on higher floors. As for the social aspect, it makes sense that people would be less likely to socialize with neighbors in these types of apartments. When people are paying so much to escape from the city, the isolationist mentality that comes with it will tend to spillover into the social realm, resulting in fewer human interactions with neighbors.
Now consider the second apartment. It was also a mixed-bag, to be sure, but I immediately felt more comfortable living there. It was on the first floor of a four-story building, on a tree-lined street with three- to four-story buildings surrounding it. It had a back-yard with a garden. Instead of my bedroom window looking out onto a vast landscape of towers and water, it now looked out on the backyard of a neighbor, with said neighbor's garden directly outside it. My upstairs neighbors were a family of four, and the children's footsteps could be heard clearly every time they ran across the floor. The sounds of domesticity surrounded me, making me aware of the people who lived around me. The apartment carried no status of living sky-high, and the location doubled my travel time to and from the office. On the other hand, I could walk out the front or back door and be outside, at the surface. I was surrounded by greenery. I knew my neighbors. In the end, it proved to be a much more human way of living. I still have questions about this apartment, but they're of a more personal sort. Am I more comfortable there because I grew up in the suburbs, so it's more familiar? If I was from New York City, would I be immune to these concerns because it would be all I've ever known? Is it possible to live high above the city, but still feel like you're part of it? I'm not so sure about any of these.
In the end, living so high above the surface of the earth is still a relatively recent phenomenon in human history. At our core, we humans are surface-dwelling creatures. Our innate need to escape the surface of the earth through verticality means we'll always seek out the highest places to call our own, so it's no surprise that sky-high lifestyles are so sought-after. Still, we don't yet know the long-term effects of these types of lifestyles on humanity. This is in part because it's such a difficult thing to measure accurately.[2] What we do know is that we're built for life on the surface, and we're a social species. We need easy access to the surface and we need to feel like we're part of some kind of community (or tribe); without these things we're in danger of becoming isolated, unhappy, and cut-off from those around us, even when we live in a city of millions.
[1]: For a look at why some New York residents pay great amounts to live sky-high, see: Finn, Robin. "The Stratospherians." The New York Times, May 10, 2013. Accessed February 15, 2017. Link here.
[2]: Gifford, Robert. "The Consequences of Living in High-Rise Buildings." Architectural Science Review 50, no. 1 (March 2007).