Viewing several documentaries on the writing life in Manhattan in the 1950s leaves me wondering just how anyone could afford it. Yes, the world was quite different then and, if we can believe their arguments, the written word was king the way it would no longer be by the late ’60s.
Still, it’s hard for me to believe that writing would have paid that much more in the era than it did when I entered the profession. How many plum magazine assignments were there, anyway? Or how many lucrative book advances?
The argument that rents were low, especially in Greenwich Village, is hard to believe for anyone who tried to find a decent place upstate in the early ’70s, as I did. Even for a full-time journalist working for Gannett, the best the pay would cover was a slum where a heavy rain would leak on my typewriter.
And that was without the heavy drinking that we’re told was required of the New York literary set, as well as the psychotherapy, sometimes daily. Plus the heavy smoking. Did I add, all the men wore suits and ties. (And all of the writers and editors, it was emphasized, were males. Women were employed as “fact checkers.”)
Still, when I run the numbers, they don’t add up. Can anyone tell me what I’m missing?
Jnana's Red Barn 
I don’t have a clue. I wonder that myself sometimes.
They all worked at McDonald’s!
Or places that had the cast of “Friends.”
Look, you can buy a house in parts of Ohio for the price of a year’s rent on a much smaller working-class dump in the City.
You forget acreage, you can get the house and acreage!
ah, you’re missing the beat … ‘who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz’ … that’s how
Thank you for following imaginenewdesigns. I am guessing that maybe the writers shared a place with a lot of roommates. Their living quarters may have been crowded, but the cost of rent would be shared by several people instead of just one person. Another possibility is that they were able to stay with a generous friend or relative living in New York.
Possibilities, of course.
Let’s not forget that both the writing world (i.e., publishing industry) and Manhattan were quite different in those days. Rents didn’t skyrocket until the ’60s and ’70s, if I recall right. Whenever it was that the rate-hike caps were enacted for those who already had places.
I did not think about rate-hike caps on rent. That was certainly possible too. I am also thinking that the value of the U.S. dollar was higher back then than it is now. I still find it hard to believe there was a time in America when gas was under $1.00 per gallon.
In addition, if they really needed money, there were loan sharks, pawn shops, and blood banks. 🙂
Good points, especially the power of the dollar.
New York City was still the center for a lot of manufacturing based on lower working class incomes. They had to be able to afford housing, too.
I remember 25-cent gasoline and nickle-a-glass beer, not that I would recommend the latter these days, even at that price.