Chin Up, New York Poors, You No Longer Have To Use Separate-But-Equal Doors

Among the many methods we as Americans have to communicate to poorer folks that they're Less Than, New York's "poor doors" have to be one of the grossest. If you're not familiar, developers in the city would get huge tax breaks for including "affordable housing" (by New York standards) in their projects, but because of a loophole, they were allowed to create special entrances, only for the poors, that lead to the residences of the poors. Out of sight, out of mind, right? And they couldn't use the nice people doors, the ones that led to beautiful swimming pools, rooftop decks and diamond-encrusted blowjob Candy Land parlors or whatever's hot in The City these days. Why would the poors need that stuff anyway?

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Well, NYC poors, it's time for NICE TIME! The poor doors have been banned by the city:

Thanks to a little talked about provision in New York’s rent-stabilization law, builders who receive a tax break for offering some units to low-income tenants will no longer be allowed to build separate entrances for the rich and the poor.

The controversial two-door rule came to an end after New York City mayor Bill de Blasio inserted a provision into a tax bill that was approved by the New York state senate late last week.

“I think that the state legislature and the city are now doing the right thing in terms of treating people in every socioeconomic group with the same level of respect and dignity,” New York City councilwoman Helen Rosenthal told the Guardian.

The reason the scummy developers were able to do this in the first place is that, the way the law was originally written, they could get the tax breaks just by including affordable housing in their plans. It could be right there onsite with the good Rich People, or it could be in a dumpster, underground, whatever. It just had to exist. And to lawmakers' credit, once people noticed the loophole -- because dickweasel developers had noticed! -- the city decided to fix it.

Rosenthal continued:

“Once we brought it to everyone’s attention, people were willing to take a step back and says: ‘Well if developers aren’t going to do this voluntarily, we will require it to happen.’ Fundamentally, no taxpayer dollar should go to program that further segregates our communities. Certainly not by socioeconomic status,” she said.

So, this is very good news! Unless you live in one of the already constructed buildings with separate doors for gross poors, then you're still fucked. Like the residents of 1 West End Avenue, who stillhave toget to use their own special "Ew Yuck" door. But hey, chin up, poors, because, with this new law, "[the building] will allow them to use amenities such as the courtyard and the river-view roof deck will be made accessible."

No word on the diamond-encrusted blowjob Candy Land parlor though.

[ The Guardian ]