Below is a beautiful article that appeared in today's NY Times about their move:
It dawned fairly quickly on Rabbi Motti Seligson and Shterni Bukiet Seligson that “one-bedroom apartment” was hardly a meaningful descriptor.
Rooms for the Observant
Editors Note: The Seligsons moved to Manhattan as part of their shlichus work with journalists, continuing the work Motti has been doing for Chabad Lubavitch Media Center for a number of years now. They did so with the blessing, permission and coordination of the local shluchim. We wish them much hatzlacha on the new endeavor!
Below is a beautiful article that appeared in today’s NY Times about their move:
It dawned fairly quickly on Rabbi Motti Seligson and Shterni Bukiet Seligson that “one-bedroom apartment” was hardly a meaningful descriptor.
They began apartment hunting last winter, soon after their engagement, assuming they could spend around $1,500 a month. After all, they were seeing Manhattan one-bedrooms listed for that price. Those, however, turned out to be more like divided studios.
At the top of one dark staircase in Kips Bay, they bumped into each other while looking at the bedroom. There was no closet, just a kind of ledge on the wall.
So their price range rose. And rose. “It was traumatic,” Rabbi Seligson said. “You live, you learn,” said his wife.
For the Seligsons, a suitable apartment meant enough space. As observant Jews, they needed a living area big enough to accommodate guests for Shabbos dinner and a bedroom big enough for two beds.
And, at some point, Rabbi Seligson said, they realized that they were going to have to pay more to get what they wanted.
Rabbi Seligson, who attended the Rabbinical College of America in Morristown, N.J., now works for the Chabad Lubavitch Media Center, which operates the Web site chabad.org.
Though he has traveled the world leading seders from Cyprus to Siberia, his home base was an attached brick row house in his native Crown Heights, where he lived with his parents and sister.
Mrs. Seligson grew up in a “jumbo Georgian” house in Chicago, the third of eight children. In “the natural progression of things, my friends were moving out to New York,” she said, and so did she, sharing a two-bedroom Crown Heights apartment with one of her brothers. She worked as an office manager at Chabad of Stamford, driving to Connecticut daily on Interstate 95.
The couple, both 27, met through friends last fall and married in June. They hoped to move to Midtown or the Upper East or West Side of Manhattan, closer to many of their friends and associates as well as the journalists with whom Rabbi Seligson works.
Even in the soft rental market, they soon realized that their price range was too low and their expectations too high. Apartments were always smaller than they had envisioned. The couple focused on the far Upper East Side, where their money seemed to go further.
Still, they were surprised to have such a tough time. In Crown Heights, people found apartments easily through word of mouth. In Manhattan, they found themselves dealing with assorted agents.
“We actually bumped into some of those scams” where an overseas landlord claimed he would mail the keys after receiving a hefty fee, Rabbi Seligson said. “Who even falls for that?”
As their price rose to $1,600 and then $1,800, they saw apartments that were basically all right, but unsuitable for them as religious Jews.
If the living room was big, the bedroom was small, or vice versa. They also hoped to live on a low floor because they cannot summon an elevator on Shabbos, from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, when turning on electricity is forbidden.
A friend referred them to Kobi Lahav, an agent at Manhattan Flats. “You think you can spend $1,600,” Mr. Lahav said, but “that price range produces nothing you like.”
As a result, “I decided to show them what was available for around $2,000,” Mr. Lahav said. He had several units in co-op buildings that allow rentals.
In most cases, the bedrooms were still too small. An apartment at the River Park, a co-op building on East 90th Street, had a balcony, but the Seligsons far preferred indoor space.
“The options are limited,” Mrs. Seligson said, “so you stick to what you need as opposed to what you want.”
A bedroom big enough for two beds, which are needed for reasons of religious observance, “is very rare in the $2,000 price range,” Mr. Lahav said.
But he had in mind Plymouth Tower on East 93rd Street, a 30-story co-op building constructed in 1977. It had boxy one-bedrooms of around 700 square feet. But the first available apartment there was too expensive, around $2,300, and the landlord would not negotiate.
An apartment in a rental building on East 81st Street seemed dated. On their way out, Rabbi Seligson noted that people needed to press a button near the main door to exit. In such a building — which had no alternate door — they wouldn’t be able to get out on Shabbos.
The Seligsons, who were in a month-to-month Crown Heights rental for around $1,000, were in no rush to find a new home.
Mrs. Seligson quoted a friend: “Everything ends up O.K. in the end, and if it’s not O.K., it’s not the end.”
Another vacancy arose in Plymouth Tower, this one on a lower floor. The Seligsons liked the layout, like a big square, halved. Two queen-size beds easily fit. And, with this owner glad to negotiate the rent down to $2,050, it was a place they could afford.
“I don’t know if we would be able to do this at any other time, but because of the market, it was all bashert,” Rabbi Seligson said, using the Yiddish word for things that were meant to be.
After approval by the co-op board, the two moved in last month. There is no kosher supermarket in the immediate vicinity, and Mrs. Seligson found herself worrying.
“We can’t just run out to a bodega and pick up ice cream,” she said. (It must have a special kosher dairy designation.) “I started to panic. We can’t run out in the morning if the milk is spoiled. We do without.”
But Park East Kosher, a large kosher market, is about 10 minutes away. And they do most of their food shopping in Crown Heights, where Chabad Lubavitch has it world headquarters. Mrs. Seligson just began a new job there, at chabad.org, so the Seligsons often commute together, relieved to be heading against rush-hour traffic on the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive.
Parking their car can be difficult. As they recently unloaded in front of the building, they spotted a car pulling out down the block. So, in true Seinfeldian fashion, they rushed to grab the opportunity. “I am driving with my trunk open to get the spot,” Mrs. Seligson said.
Already, they have had friends for dinner around a table that seats 10 — 12 if they squeeze. They look forward to doing so often.
What is the point of this article?
why move to some random place in Manhattan and then complain about it? and if they both work in CH why not just live there. or if they dont like CH there are other places close by.
Chabad Everywhere!
Best wishes to the Seligsons on all their great work!
The Chabad website is fantastic. Many Jews, of all walks of life, have used it and complimented it.
Many nonJews are also impressed with the Chabad website, are respectful for what it offers, and use it as a source for finding out about true Judaism.
aron
Way to go Motti and Shterni!
Lots of luck in your media work and in your new Bais Chabad/home.
Miri and Henche
just curious
Im trying to figure out the point of this article?
me
rent in crown heights
train ride is only $2.25 , better that then 2,000 rent.
CrownHeightser
What is the point in the article. Is it to say, that it is okay not to live in CH even though you work there. What would be wrong just to live in CH??
yosef
Yeah this article is a none entity. The process of finding an apartment in the city is always a challenge. Adding this made up mesiras nefesh seems like propaganda.
mendel 13
why live there when the best place is crown heights!?
are they just living in Manhattan not on shlichus?- wow i could use that money
to last comment
just curious wrote:
Im trying to figure out the point of this article?
ITS CALLED CONNECTIONS, WHICH HE SEEMS TO HAVE AT THE NYT.
Mushky
Hats off to the Selligsons!
And to “just curious”, the point of this article is to show the lengths that Chabadniks go to to be proper Jews and help others as well!
Not able to live in CH
the point is chabad goes everywhere even if it is in Manhattan. They are doing just fine and deserve the very best. You don’t have to live in CH to make it work.
cp
to just curios
im with you but its hilarious when you know motty and his media freinds
ch resident
The point is that here is another couple on shlichus; living in an area where they will be more accessible to a specific population, i.e. journalists, who will more readily come to a Shabbos meal in Manhattan than in Crown Heights.
The fact is that you cannot necessarily control how a journalist will skew an article or the facts they choose to highlight.
read
did anyone read from the source? it was in the real estate section of the paper… not everything in the paper is the type of exciting news story you are used to
renter
This could have been written about Crown Heights. My son, before his wedding, had a lot of difficulty finding an apartment. The one he finally found that he could afford had room for one bed in the bedroom. He ends ep on the floor or the couch some of the time. I know families in Crown Heights that can’t find apartments because the rents have gone up too high and there are very few apartments for families available.Then if they find one, the landlords don’t make repairs, never paint the apartments, and most apartments get infested with mice or bedbugs.
Both beds don’t need to be queen-sized.What will they do when they are blessed with children?
Out of towner
Crown Heights people are just so kind and nice… Just read the above comments…
To Just Curious
The fact that Motti seems to have connections at the NYTimes just shows how effective he is at his job — developing contacts to promote Chabad, its mission, and shluchim.
a bochur
hatzlacha rabo motti!! When I was on merkoz shlichus in the midwest motti got me in the local paper. People jsut kept coming over to me and my friend.It realy helped our shlichus. Motti is a great guy and he is doing very good work.
Disappointed in my CH neighbors
There are lots of shluchim in NYC – even in Brooklyn and they live in their place of shlichus not CH. Some of these comments are just mean-spirited and unbecoming to a Lubavitcher.
Lots of luck to this couple in their Shlichus.
To 1: They didnt choose the easy way out
My dear friend Commenter number 1!!
You missed the whole point.
Their shlichus is with Chabad.org, which happens to be based in CH. However, if they live in Manhattan, imagine what beautiful shabbos guests they can have – people who have never seen a shabbos table before. And imagine what amazing influence they can have in Manhattan, with all the secular jews around! Why should they live in CH if they can affect so many more people by just living in the city.
Just FYI, if they wanted a really good and easy life, they’d live in CH, believe me. They are living out there like all the other shluchim do – mesiras nefesh. Give them credit for it and compliment them instead of criticizing!
Elchonon
ive known motti many years now bh. The focus is, to live in the area where he can interact and connect with journalists.
Easy for you to say, but working in crown heights isnt the crux of it. Journalists would want to be meeting closer to where they are i.e. Manhattan, and yes there’s shabbos and yom tov guests to host..
Liaison
Yashaar Koach to Motty and his Kallah and Hatzlacha in your new endeaver to bring those out of Crown Heights closer to Chabad, Chassidus and the Rebbe,
your friend at the NYC Council
chabad
Im sure he will relaize once he moves to Manhattan that its not as exciting as it seems from CH especialy for a frum Jew and in particualr once he has a Child Bez”h.
Any way Good Luck!
Your CH Landlord
I’m glad I was able to accomodate you on your “month to month rental”.
great!
Im so happy they found an apt.
me too
so why cant anybody move somewhere and say its for the job and oh by the way we can have more guest by are shabbos table