Jordan Olivier and her younger sister, Kaden, shared a room (and clothes), while they were growing up in suburban Maryland. They attended the same K-12 schools, but went to different colleges, a situation that caused Kaden a certain degree of angst.
“I had some separation anxiety,” said Kaden, 22, who recently moved to New York for a job in H.R. at an investment bank. “I knew I wanted Jordan around.”
Jordan is around all right. She and her sister Kaden have apartments in the same building.
For the easily amused, it sounds like the premise of a sitcom. For skeptics, it sounds like a recipe for disaster. But for some, like the Oliviers, who have a long, happy history of togetherness but still value their privacy, living in the same apartment building as a family member is an ideal setup.
“It takes the big city out of the big city,” said Kathy Braddock, co-owner of Braddock and Purcell, a residential real estate consulting firm. “You have independence, but you have someone nearby whom you trust. And if you want to get together for dinner you don’t have to get on the subway to do it.
“This is obviously not for everybody,” Ms. Braddock added. “But if you have a tight-knit connection with a family member, how nice.”
For the Olivier sisters, living in proximity in Manhattan won’t be new. When Kaden had an internship in the city last summer, she bunked with Jordan and loved the experience and the building, VIA 57 West, a high-rise on the Hudson River. As soon as she knew she’d landed the job at the bank, her aim was to be back at VIA 57 West, and back with her sister. Well, sort of back with her sister. Six floors separate them. Jordan, 24, an energy and utilities consultant, was all in favor.
“I wanted Kaden to have a least a year in New York with me close by,” she said. “We thought about living together but then decided it would be good to have separate places.”
The arrangement can be multigenerational, too.
When their daughter went off to college three years ago, Bobby Zhou and his wife, Lei Zhou, found it an opportune time to ditch the time-devouring hassle of commuting to New York City from Mountain Lakes, N.J. At the end of 2022, they moved into an apartment at Front and York, a condominium in Brooklyn.
They decided on a one-bedroom but, Mr. Zhou said, were concerned about where their daughter would stay during breaks from school.
“We knew she wouldn’t want to live with us,” said Mr. Zhou, 51, the director of a financial technology company. “She wanted to be in Manhattan, but we wanted her closer.”
The compromise: Mr. Zhou and his wife, Lei, a director at an investment banking firm, bought their daughter, Amy, a one-bedroom apartment in another section of the condo complex.
They have keys to one another’s apartment. When Amy, now a college senior, is away at school, Lei Zhou, 51, uses the vacant apartment as a study, and family friends use it as a guest suite. But Mr. Zhou said he and his wife would never show up unannounced at their daughter’s door.
“I had a little hesitancy about being too close for comfort,” Amy Zhou, 21, said. “But my parents are good about giving me my privacy.”
She was unfazed, she said, about her apartment being occupied by others during her absence: “I like knowing my space is in use.”
For years, David Nowicki’s many changes of address were motivated by his career in tech. But his most recent move was all about family — and family support. In early 2022, several months after his wife, Laura, died of breast cancer, Mr. Nowicki moved from the San Francisco area to Manhattan to be near his only child, Ryan, and Ryan’s girlfriend (now wife).
“I could see that Ryan was going to be in New York for the foreseeable future, and that New York was where the grandkids would be,” Mr. Nowicki said.
At first, he lived with his son and future daughter-in-law in their apartment on the Upper East Side, then, that May, he moved to a one-bedroom rental at One Columbus Place in Lincoln Square.
But by relocating to be near his son, Mr. Nowicki was now clear across the country from his mother, Patricia Nowicki-Ross, now 81. Fortunately, Ms. Nowicki-Ross, who was just ending a relationship, was game for a fresh start.
In January, she moved from California to Mr. Nowicki’s apartment, and this month she is set to move into her own place, a one-bedroom at One Columbus Place.
“I didn’t push it on her. It was her choice,” Mr. Nowicki, 59, said. “I wasn’t concerned about her being too close and she wasn’t concerned about being too close. We’re enjoying the time together and I’ve been helping her with medical and financial things.
“But I do expect she’ll start dating again, and my girlfriend who lives in Toronto visits once a month,” he added. “I want to support my mother’s life and privacy as much as I want her to support mine.”
Much like the Zhou family, Howard Davis bought a one-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side for his daughter, Jennifer, in 1994, a couple of years after she graduated from college.
In 2013, after Jennifer got married, the one-bedroom apartment next door became available and Mr. Davis bought it as well, combining the units to give his daughter and son-in-law much more room.
But after he remarried in 2018, two years after his wife died, Mr. Davis was the one searching for more square footage. He had settled into his wife’s one-bedroom, but the space felt tight.
“My husband and I realized we didn’t need such a big apartment,” said Ms. Davis, who has since gotten divorced. She handed the keys over to her father.
Ms. Davis, an elementary school computer teacher, wanted to stay in the building — after all, it had been her home for more than 30 years — but there were no vacancies. Luckily, after searching elsewhere in the neighborhood, she learned of the sudden availability of a one-bedroom three floors below her old home.
“My dad and I have always been close,” Ms. Davis, 55, said, “and having him in the building makes it easier to have a relationship.” It helps that her father and his wife never come by unannounced or would never leave a treat in her refrigerator without prior approval.
It also helps, Ms. Davis said, “that we don’t cross each other’s path every day.”
“I don’t know when they’re home,” she continued. “They don’t know when I’m home.”
They catch up once a week over dinner, but may get together more frequently should Mr. Davis encounter an internet or email issue.
“Jen is a whiz at computers,” he said. “And my wife and I leave something to be desired in that area. It’s like we have our own private technician.”
Mr. Davis wishes only that his son, a doctor, would consider moving to the building too. “That way,” he said, “I’d be able to get quick, free medical advice.”
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