Category: SROs

Housing as a service: return of the rooming house? Part 2, the lone survivor

9 June, 2010 (10:13) | Apartments, Innovations, New York City, Rooming Houses, SROs, US News |

By: David A. Smith [Continued from yesterday's Part 1. ] In yesterday’s exploration of the once-plentiful, now-all-but-extinct buffalo known as the American boarding house, we met the long-lived Penington Friends House and its secular evangelist, Michael Trollan, who came to dine and stayed to live. The Surratt boarding house, Washington, DC, nineteenth century That’s how [...]

Housing as a service: return of the rooming house? Part 1, the visionary

8 June, 2010 (15:12) | Apartments, Innovations, New York City, Rooming Houses, SROs, US News |

By: David A. Smith In our home, we think of housing as a product: four walls and a roof, heating, hot water, electricity (and, increasingly, broadband). When we travel, housing is a service – whether in a dorm or a hotel room, someone else provides either food or maid service. Home, our permanent residence, is [...]