Three recent examples from the New York Times provide some specific, concrete insights into rent control and rent stabilization in New York City:
From the obituary of Edward Jay Epstein: "Mr. Epstein lived alone in a lavish rent-controlled apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side."
From the obituary for Alice Mason, real estate broker and society hostess: "She never left the rent-stabilized apartment where she held her storied dinners, in a century-old building on East 72nd Street. (In Manhattan real estate parlance, it was a classic eight, a gracious prewar layout that included three bedrooms and two maid's rooms.) When she moved there in 1962, the rent was $400 a month. At her death, it was $2,476. The apartment below her, in the same line, was recently on the market for just under $10 million."
From the Times article on the estate of opera fan Lois Kirschenbaum, who died in 2021: "Kirschenbaum, a former switchboard operator who lived in a rent controlled apartment in the East Village, had made plans to give away a large share of her life savings — some $1.7 million — to cultural groups upon her death....the total distribution from [her] estate, about $4 million, is being divided equally among 18 non-profit organizations and one individual...."
There are pushes afoot to impose new rent control laws at the federal level and in cities such as Boston. If it happens, the beneficiaries will likely also be sophisticated individuals who would almost certainly have been okay, if perhaps less comfortably situated, without the controls.
This is both an economic-regulation-housing-policy item and a press accountability-media-literacy item. You hardly ever find an investigative piece or housing policy piece in the Times delving into these matters. It only comes up in elliptical references in obituaries or articles about charitable bequests. Part of it is a practical problem—the people who have these situations are reluctant to draw attention to themselves by talking to the press while they are alive, for fear of ruining the great deals they have. However, the Times is often able to surmount this difficulty when it decides it really wants to tackle a topic. They sure went after the yeshivas even though few families that were enrolled were interested in talking.
Thanks to Henry D. Fetter for noticing these examples, seeing the pattern, and sending them along with his permission to assemble them together here.