MY LIFE UNDER RENT CONTROL (COMMENT).

MY LIFE UNDER RENT CONTROL (COMMENT). Annalisa also expressed some shock in her comment at the youthful sins of her parents in living under rent control. The apartment we lived in was technically “rent stabilized” rather than “rent controlled,” under one of the complicated variants which attempt to soften the problems of price control. Rent controlled (not just rent stabilized) apartments were sought after when I got to New York. The word was that the best way to get an early start on finding one was to stand in line in Sheridan Square on Wednesday night to get the VILLAGE VOICE hot off the presses. (I was also told that joining the Village Independent Democrats was a good way to get a connection to one). My first apartment was probably not priced as much below market as really nice apartments were, but I did pay what I thought of as key money for the furniture in the apartment. (“key money” was an upfront payment for the right to an apartment at a favorable rental). I paid $500, perhaps the equivalent of $2000 or $2500 in today’s money, but I got a bed, an air conditioner, some small items of furniture, and dark green carpeting and heavy dark green drapes, which one friend said made the place seem like an Aztec tomb. Almost forty years later, we still use one of the small nightstands. I didn’t feel many ethical qualms about what I was doing