The New York City Apartment Underground

In a city like New York, “underground” can mean a lot of good things: cutting edge music, avant guard art, exclusive happenings, and/or harmless fun of the illegal variety. When it comes to NYC apartments, however, “underground” is much more likely to mean: illegal sublet, mildew, powerful enemies (real and/or imagined), relapse, outstanding warrants, overgrown alligators, a career in the arts, and almost certainly sharing the bathroom with one or more cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers (CHUDs).

But according to the New York Times, in the hands of developers of NYC luxury apartment buildings underground space increasingly means 10-foot ceilings with track lighting and imported wood flooring and your very own sauna, indoor pool, gym, movie theater, wine bar, game room, artist studio, and/or tasting room--no word on what flavors they can build those in yet.

Some of these subterranean rooms even have glass bricks set into the sidewalk above that reportedly let in a great deal of sunlight, although one can easily imagine your view of pedestrians walking over your skylight can occasionally taking a disturbing turn toward the Lohan.

The catch in scoring one of these super-deluxe basements, is that it comes with the garden-level apartment above it. According to the NYC building code, underground space that lacks natural light and ventilation is considered “cellar space” and “uninhabitable”, so it is illegal to rent or sell an underground unit as freestanding NYC apartment or bedroom, luxury or no. To discourage this practice, developers cannot put full bathrooms in below ground apartments, just half-baths. As if that’s going to discourage CHUDs—it doesn’t even discourage most non-cannibalistic families! According to one broker:

"[B]uyers often wind up renovating and create full baths and guest rooms or bedrooms. […] Although it’s not prescribed to be used that way, a couple might have a child and decide to use it as a dwelling area even though legally it’s not living space."

When it comes time to sell the property, the owners must market it as a one-bedroom with basement space […] but other families will see it as a two-bedroom that’s selling for $150,000 less than a real two-bedroom, so why not? It’s an unwritten rule of thumb.”

Averaging 30 to 50 percent less than above ground space, subterranean NYC luxury properties may not remotely resemble their CHUD-infested, hell-hole brethren, but buyers certainly benefit from their troubled brethren's reputations.