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Imagine living in a single closed bedroom with your entire family AND having 3 other families walk through your room to get to theirs. We have it so good😭

I really love the way you pointed out "WHY" there was change in design, yet also explained why the change you see today.

I lived in NY for about ten years, and I laughed when you mentioned the "ample heat." It's quite common to look up and see apartment windows open during the coldest days of winter because the older, steam-heated apartments have two settings for the heat: off, and fiery depths of Hell.

As both a new yorker and a lover of architecture, this is genuinely one of my favorite videos AD has ever produced. What a wonderful guest- I could listen to him for hours.

Really enjoyed this episode as it touched base on the evolution of architecture in New York and the motivation behind the different architectures, which is something most people do not consider or appreciate.

This is incredible. After living in NYC for 10 years its so cool to learn the history behind all these types of buildings I lived in over the years!

I loooove that he addresses the way class and wealth play into each of these apartment types and neighborhoods! Wasn't expecting that as my assumption is usually that architects have wealth themselves and may not care about everyone else. Great video :)

I’ve said it once, I’ll say it a +100x ….if this guy writes a book, or starts a channel with longer deep dives on each building styles? I’ll subscribe or buy a book, whatever. He articulates SO well a topic I never knew I was so fascinated by.

Loved every minute of this video, I remember a teacher saying if you know what you’re teaching it’s never complicated. Anyone that complicates a subject doesn’t know it. This was fantastic……

It makes me sad realizing that there was a period in time (however brief in the grand scheme of things) when artists were taken so much more seriously than both before and after. Here in Sweden there was even the concept of "artist's pay" during much of the past century, which meant that artists could receive basic income simply for being an artist, as long as they went to speak with the proper authority and could prove that they were regularly producing art and that there was some sort of public interest in their works.

This is absolutely fascinating! When visiting NYC, I see many of theses buildings in specific areas and to have a their historical context laid out in this video is quite mind blowing. I love this video. Excellent content. I really appreciate it.

This was so interesting. I always heard these terms thrown around but never really knew what they meant. The origin of "stoop" being Dutch makes a lot of sense, because it's a weirdly specific New York City word. I had no idea the origin of "studio apartment" was so fancy! I think the pattern of artists going into an industrial area, living like pioneers, building something special only to be victims of their own success when they are priced out of the neighborhood, has repeated itself all around the world.

My wife and I lived in a studio for over 20 years. As New Yorkers, we engaged in that favorite competitive sport, tracking real estate (both for sale and rentals). One day an ad appeared listing one of the studios in our line for sale, describing it as being "420 square feet". This surprised me so I got out my tape measure and measured every square inch of our apartment and calculated the actual square footage. This led me to the conclusion that in addition to both English and Metric measurements, there is a "Manhattan Real Estate Measurement". Specifically, according to my calculation, a Manhattan Square Foot is approximately 9 inches by 9 inches.

So much important history in such a short video! Michael is so smart-- would love to see him discuss more about NYC architecture!

This was extremely informative and insightful. I was born in the Bronx in the early 80s and can remember some distinctive looks and feel of the buildings in New York. Great video.

Could you do a video depicting architecture from the different boroughs of NYC?

I really appreciate how he approached the changes of New York being caused by gentrification rather than just "things progressing". Humanizing and including marginalized people and financial insecurities in the conversation of housing is so important!

I would love to see this done for other cities as a series! Philadelphia, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston. Would be super cool and interesting.

I love this! I appreciate you pointing out systematic issues surrounding funding which impacted how housing projects are not cared for. I also appreciate you pointing out that housing projects receive a bad reputation. A place and space that was built for the working-class people of NYC.

I went to architecture school about 30 years ago and this presentation reminds me about how much enjoyment I received from listening to a good architectural history professor.

It’s this guy again. This guy needs to have his own show. I would watch it all the time.

More. We want more of these. ❤️

This is just such a well made video all around. Informative without any fluff just straight to the point, graphics and photos perfectly illustrating narration. It's 16 minutes long yet felt like 5 because of how well paced and clearly presented it is. UKposts randomly suggested it to me and I enjoyed every second of it. It should be a standard for educational videos under 20 minutes.

Who is the architect he’s amazing at explaining this in such an interesting way

I'm a small town boy living on an acre with chickens in the backyard, so this is as far away from my world as I can imagine. And I found it fascinating, explaining terms that I've heard on TV and in the movies for over 50 years without understanding. Thank you so much.

I've seen 3br apts with 2 baths in NYC where the smallest room had the dedicated bathroom. It didn't make sense to me but now I get it: it was the maid's room.

I learned so much about NYC that i never new before after many visits just from the first 3 minutes of this video!

stoop comes from the Dutch stoep, which does not mean a staircase. it has two meanings. in the first place it means a slightly higher part of the road intended for pedestrians. in addition, a raised entrance to a front door is also called a "stoep". this can be with a staircase, for example but that could also be done with a slope

Mr Wyentzner is such a great presenter, and it's clear that he cares a lot about historic New York architecture and the people who have lived in it! Hearing about the technological innovations and social situations that lead to these different styles was extremely interesting and captivating, thank you!

I have been noticing the layout of houses since I was 8 years old. I could draw you a floor plan of every house my friends lived in when I was a child. I loved this presentation. Thank you

Michael Wyetzner, you did a wonderful job with this apartment breakdown. Watching it once was not enough. Thank you and cheers.

Would be really cool to see a video on the architecture of NYC housing projects.

This man just taught me everything I've ever wanted to learn about residential architecture in NYC. Thanks, Mr. Weytzner!

I really want to see one of these breakdowns for each major city across the world. This was fascinating

Kudos to this gentleman for so eloquently stating the issues with public housing

This guy is so easy to listen to, and his enthusiasm is magnetic. I live in South Dakota, and yearn for New York City. This video kind of takes me there. Thank you.

I love my railroad apartment, I’m the third floor, it’s so fun to decorate and such a unique living style, you can see in my floors the indent of the most popular path that people have used. Original floors from the early 1900s! so it really feels magical to think of all the people who have lived in it since.

As a current NYC resident, this was very informative! I always wondered what was the logic behind most of these weird NYC apartments haha

Michael Wyetzner seems like a very likeable person. I imagine people enjoy spending time with him.

I love learning the history of architecture for different cities. This man is very interesting and easy going, laid back. A great video of knowledge. ❤ We have a lot of this same architecture in Birmingham, Alabama.

I also lived in a classic six on Clairmont Ave up by Barnard College and Columbia U on the top floor, and during the summer, it was brutally hot because of convection from the tar roof. I eventually noticed that the big clamshell windows in the living room and all the transoms had been painted over, and so one day I took a utility knife and opened all the transoms, and then the big windows. As soon as I opened them, the apartment cooled off by 30 degrees and a beautiful cool steady top-gallant breeze began blowing through the entire apartment. Pro tip: if you live in such an apartment with painted over transoms and windows, open them up!

As a lifelong resident of Los Angeles, I have often heard these terms bandied about in movies or television shows set in New York. It's very interesting to learn the history of the architecture and the terms used to describe the various types of apartments. Thank you very much for making and posting this video!

I grew up in the housing projects in Bklyn. I don't know why I click on this but I did...and I am glad. This was VERY educational. Thank you for your work. You have gained a new subscriber.

Absolutely LOVED this. Fascinating explanation of why everything was used the way they were and how/why the architecture evolved.

My mother’s family moved from the South in the early 1900s. My mother was raised in railroad apartments. Her wealthier aunt and uncle lived in the 7 room apartment, set up exactly as I remembered it. The kitchen was in the rear overlooking the back to gardens between the houses. There was a small maids room right off the kitchen with a bathroom. The family lived in the front rooms overlooking the street.

It alarms me that I have known artists who rented a "sleeping space", beneath the floor of a loft apartment. The loft suite had really tall ceilings, so along the way a crawl space beneath the floor was created. It was only 5 foot tall,.....to gain access to it, there was 4 steps down. The dweller of such a room couldn't even stand up in it. They would have to move about their sleeping space on their knees. The larges rooms above it, have actual windows, in their floors, to allow for some (natural) light to penetrate into the crawl-space, sleeping room. That "crawl-space" bedroom rented for a high amount of money. The dweller of that bedroom was allowed to share the bathroom & kitchen of the larger loft space above it. Madness!

I love experts! Michael's knowledge and passion for his craft bursts through in this highly informative and educational video. Top shelf production!

This guy is a freaking WEALTH of knowledge

Thanks Michael Wyetzner! That was a fun and informative video.

Love how he knows so much about architecture and not just the technical terms but how they came about why they came about what type of people lived in them and the systemic issues that people faced and still do

Beautifully explained. I always wondered about the different types of apartment buildings in New York City. Thank you for putting all this together for us. It is a great and beautiful video.

Thoroughly enjoyed the video. Thanks for taking the time to put it together. Very informative.

4:45 Back in 1975, I read a book called "The Good Old Days: They were terrible.", which described the conditions in these tenement buildings, including the trash piling up in ventilation shafts. It was quite revealing, but not really surprising. I later read something called "American Skyline" (written in the 1950s) which addressed a seeming paradox which had been bugging me for a while: how were there enough rich people in the 1800s to buy up all of the new, 5 or 6 story "brownstones" in cities like Boston and NYC. That's a lot of house, even for a very comfortable family. As the book described, these buildings were built in phases, with the newest streets being the most currently fashionable, and many of the houses in the streets that were more than a few years old became de facto rooming houses as the owners took in boarders to help pay the mortgage, then were subdivided not long after that. So the number of such buildings that were serving as individual residences at any given time was fairly low. In Boston, the leading edge of this wave was the newly created land from the gradual filling-in of the "Back Bay" saltwater swamp that originally surrounded the Charles River.

I own a 6 fl brown stone in Baltimore. Built in the early 1800’s. It’s huge. After I bought it, I found an entire hidden room, 3 weeks after I moved in. My nephew said “Uncle Neal …. this isn’t a house … it’s a hotel !” I loved it when I was younger but now it’s just too much space.

I absolutely loved this little presentation. I grew up in the 50 s in Brooklyn.. such a beautiful city. My mother told me about how where she lived in NYC she had to use the " outhouse" in back of the house.

So glad you popped up on my feed! Loved it.

As a boy in the Bronx, we lived in what I always heard referred to as a Pullman apartment. It was like you described as a railroad apt with the full length corridor. Before that my dad was the super in a dumbbell building. We lived in the basement next to the boiler room.

I live in a brownstone in Harlem that was built in 1910. I love how the bedrooms are in the back and there aren’t any alley ways. Makes things very private, safe, and quiet from the New York noises. And one newer thing that had grown in sound recently, fireworks. Anytime New Years or July 4th approaches, fireworks are nuts here in Harlem.

What a great video. Michael seems to embody the best aspects of NYC. He talks fast, but clearly, and packs info. in densely. The format is ideal; going through in order according to historic eras and explaining each period and the reasons for each style, as well as the reasons for transition to the next style. The personal history with pictures of his family's actual apartment when they were recent immigrants is great. The contrast between the tenements and the elite studios is amazing.

This was incredible. I loved it. So much history and information. I’ve lived in NYC over 30 years and I still learned a lot from this. Hard to believe it was all just an ad for ballpoint pens.

I could watch this guy talk all day. Fascinating.

Wow, I've lived in nyc for a few years now and this was FASCINATING. To have been around so many of these places, and recognizing them in the video, but finally knowing the history. Really amazing, really appreciate it. I feel like Michael was super informative, talking about the good and the bad in what seemed to be a very leveled fashion. I'd love a tour from him!

Amazing and super interesting explanation and description of these types of apartments. I always wanted to know the details of these styles and how to tell them apart but never found a better video.

I love videos about architecture and Michael Wyetzner's well-thought explanations! Some things my uncle, who has lived in small apartments most of his life in NYC, he asked us kids "Why do you have to fight over the restroom? There is more space outside for the boys" the boys blushed and the girls too! Then he told us how he and nine of his siblings lived in small apartments with a single toilet, and single bathtub and they all shared the same bedroom to sleep in. It really took us out of our selfish reality! Today my cousins recollect those memories and enjoy the small studios they share with their spouses and children. Obviously, today most 'Loft Apartments' are built out of renovated old buildings and are slightly more spacious, AC/Heat/Electric/waste disposal included in the rent. I think the gym, food service, and other amenities are extras, if you need them you can ask the landlord. Other than that, you can still see the original distinct shape, faded color, and the small detailed frescoes above doors, and staircases, and when the elevator is going up (clear top ceiling) you can also see the old decor all around the shaft. Definitely looking forward to more Mr Wyetzner's videos!

I just moved out of NYC a few months ago after nearly 41 years living on 100th Street (at Riverside Drive). I lived in a building built in 1913. In its original form, it had huge, multi-room apartments, but they were all cut down into smaller units sometime around the WWII era. I had one of the smaller apartments in the building--a small kitchen, a small-medium sized bathroom, a large bedroom and a large front room, and a mid-sized foyer--but compared to so many apartments elsewhere in the city, it was reasonably spacious, helped by having 10-foot ceilings. And it was rent-stabilized! I never did install an air-conditioner unit, so it could be hot in the summer, but, as you point it, there was plenty of steam heat throughout the winter. I loved living there. (By contrast, a college pal of mine who moved to NYC a couple of years before me lived in a railroad flat on 5th St. at the corner of Avenue B. Yes, the tub was in the kitchen, with a water closet at the far end of the apartment, a narrow closet-like space with only a toilet (no sink). The toilet was flushed by pulling on a chain hanging from the ceiling. My friend later moved one block up to 6th between Avenues A and B, and much later, to a loft in DUMBO while it was still an artist's colony, and before it became the high-priced SOHO clone it is today.)

I love it. I’m wondering if he can do the boroughs. Houses in each borough is interesting.

Growing up in the village was wonderful! Thank you for providing so much history and for bringing back my memories of Manhattan. I wish I could still afford to live there!

As a former property professional worked more than 25 years in London and in Berlin, it was great to learn these details about the architecture of this amazing city I love and lucky to know. Thank you

I've lived in NYC for 12 years now and this is the most comprehensive and insightful recap of architecture and history of the city I've watched. Learned so much!

Not all tenement apartments were railroads. I lived for 14 years (1976-1990) in what was then called a one-bedroom apartment in what was then known as the East Village. All the buildings in my immediate vicinity went up in the 1890s. My apartment measured 310 square feet. It had three rooms, all in a row, but you entered in the middle room. That was the bathe-in, eat-in kitchen (11' x 11') -- completely unrenovated -- with the original sink next to the bathtub, to which a previous tenant had added a hinged cover to create counter space. West of the kitchen was the living room (11' x 11') which I often used as a bedroom (my "living bedroom") and which contained a kind of closet with a toilet. East of the kitchen was the bedroom (7' x 8'), which I eventually turned into an office. Each of the three rooms had one north-facing window, and then the living room and the toilet-closet shared a fourth window, half in each space. There was a little storage space: cabinets above the bathtub, a tiny closet in one corner of the kitchen, and a very narrow built-in armoire in the living room. The location was fantastic -- I was in the middle of a thriving art & social scene -- and the rent was affordable even for a starving artist -- $110 a month when I moved in, $265 a month when I moved out 14 years later. (Rent stabilization is what made that thriving scene possible!) I didn't mind the primitive plumbing, but I often felt claustrophobic in that space. All the while I lived there I had a recurring dream in which I found a door in my apartment that led to a whole new room whose existence I'd never suspected. It made me feel ecstatic until I woke up and realized it was just that dream again. By now every unit in that building has been renovated, but they haven't gotten any bigger, so modern bathrooms now take up a lot of the former living space. Since 1990 I've lived in Seattle, where apartments tend to be a lot bigger (though the newly built ones get smaller every year). Sadly, Seattle doesn't have any form of rent control or stabilization, and rents just keep getting higher.

Thanks for this video. I’m a lifelong New Yorker and appreciate the variety of architecture in our city.

This was incredible, thank you for creating this video and explaining into such detail the history of the architecture the way it affected people not just current aesthetics.

im so glad u addressed affordable housing. some people have so many nasty thoughts about it not knowing how neglected the families and the buildings are by the government

In the late 1970s I met some artists who rented on old, defunct bowling alley, in the city of Chicago. It had about 10 lanes, and the ceilings were very tall. They built a 2 story apartment over 6 of the 10 lanes, keeping the lanes intact, but covering them over. Outside of their apartment, were the original remaining 4 lanes. They kept them intact, the narrow alleys became places to set up chairs, & other furnishings,.....and guests could still bowl, though the mechanical ball return, was no longer there. It had been gutted out and sold for scrap. Pins could be set up and knocked down, but resetting them, was a manual affair.

Thank you. That was great. I remember so much of what you talk about from listening to my NYC born and bred mother and her family.

First time I've come accross your channel. I always wondered about these various types apartments. Truly enjoying to watch. I live in one of these apartments. I'll call it a tenement building. A 6 floor walk up, with no elevator. Not so much as a sink in the the tiny bathroom. Greatly pleased with this episode.

great video, next you should make one on the types of housing found in the outer boros (pre vs post war apartments, the projects, newer 5 over 1s and older 2-3 stories over store space, etc)

For the brownstone: "Stoop" is not a Dutch word for staircase, "Stoep" means pavement, as the stairs are a continuation of the public street

As a non-American thank you for explaining the concept of blocks. We hear the term a lot on NYC shows but the scale doesnt make sense

I really love this video. I've learned so much from it. It's beautifully put together and narrated. Thank you so much!

Wow, lived in NYC 20 years and never knew about these UWS 2 floor studios! Having a hard time believing they are still intact. Would love to see one. I lived in several kinds of apartments in my time there, ending up in a very non-luxe 250sf studio on the backside of a converted Brownstone in Ft. Greene. It was the quietest apartment I ever had, with a huge bathroom that was original, and 3 long windows. I loved living there. Now I live in a circa 1924 terracotta tile roofed apartment in Atlanta, which is also beautiful and interesting, with many windows and a crazy cross-breeze that would have been essential pre AC. Love historic buildings. This was great, thank you!

The railroad apartment layout reminds me of the "shotgun" houses we have here in the south. I lived in a shotgun apartment for about a year ... one room lead to the next. But it was up to the person living there what to do with each room ... and there was generally only one bedroom.

Thank you for making this video which is very concise, informative and insightful. I was just there last week and now everything made total sense. cheers!

I loved this history lesson. I'm so fascinated with historic buildings and architectural designs that you don't see in new builds. Truly lost art.

This was quite an interesting history lesson and I very much enjoyed this video. The architecture of NYC's apartments inspired multi-family housing in cities across the US; particularly during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Learning more about the original contexts in which they developed was enjoyable viewing. This was presented in a truly engaging manner, IMHO--thanks! :)

Oh my gosh, I love this guy!! What a great teacher! He's so easy to listen to! This was SO interesting!!

This guy is amazing. He actually makes history sound interesting. Just glued!

Excellent video, very clear and informative

I thoroughly enjoyed this video. Something about the way this gentleman conducted himself in conjunction with the knowledge of his craft was just great

I love Wyetzner's videos, he's so informed and interesting. I've only found a few other clips of him on AD-I wish there were more.

I think this is the most interesting of the four videos by Mr. Wyetzner that I've seen. As someone who grew up in 1950s Manhattan, it makes aesthetic and historical sense of surroundings I knew (brownstones, classic six [or whatever]), that my parents and grandparents knew (railroad apartments), and that I saw emerge (lofts and studios). Mr. Wyetzner is engaging and the AD video team presents him well. I learned a lot and look forward to future videos!

Thank you for this wonderful video! Mr. Wyetzner, so informative, I found you Fascinating, what a great history lesson, thank you.

I love these videos. Please keep them coming. Terrifically informative.

Anyone who loves architecture needs to listen to this guy here.. thank you AD for these beautiful and informative videos. Keep it up!

I just love the way you explain stuff. So straight forward. Easy to understand

Very informative! Great use of photos, diagrams, and drawings. The expert commentary is the best part.

Mr. Wyetzner was amazing, hope we get to see more videos like this, loved this episode!

Loved the way you showed the living conditions through old pictures the old and the new New York. Very interesting to see how evolution changes things for the better. I've been there and did some tours around the city. You have a beautiful craft as an architect and a pleasant way to layout the city's history in such a short time. Loved it! Gracias. Cheers from Costa Rica.

You're history lessons in architecture are simply amazing. Love them! I've lived in several railroad apartments in Manhattan, a large apartment in the Parc Vendome, and a modern apartment tower. I had know idea that when railroad apartments were built, a family lived in each room!