This tiny Manhattan apartment has gone viral for being so small. But for now, it's saving a local a lot of money each month.
"Today we tour the SMALLEST apartment in New York City at 80 square feet, which is the size of a parking space," reads the caption of YouTuber Caleb Simpson's video tour of Alaina Randazzo's home in Midtown. Since it was posted on September 13, the roughly 6-minute clip has amassed more than 1.5 million views.
At $650 a month, the apartment is a steal for its location, but it comes at the steep price of not having its own bathroom. Randazzo, who works in fashion, makes do with just a sink in her own unit and shares a shower and toilet down the hall with other tenants in the building. This configuration is what is known as a single room occupancy, or SRO, officially defined as a unit with "one or two bedrooms that lack or share a full kitchen and/or bathroom with other units."
The housing situation is legendarily compact and affordable, and has a long history in New York City, where the type of housing used to be much more common.
“I love doing the unexpected; I've always been one to try unique situations first," Randazzo, 25, told The Post. "Explore the world first, pay rent later."
What's more, the place doesn't even have its own oven. But Randazzo's kitchenette has a two-burner stove and sink, both above a mini-fridge and a small cabinet for storage. She sometimes cooks, she says, but she has to buy fresh ingredients due to lack of storage space.
“You can almost stretch out and wash your hands from the living room if you wanted to,” Simpson said as he sat down on the couch.
"You could hardly even do a home workout here, it's that small," Simpson commented at one point as he stretched and did push-ups on the floor. Randazzo will not deny it. “It's so college, it feels like a dorm, yeah,” she said of the combination of almost no storage space and communal showers.
As for sleeping, Randazzo's bed is high and close to the ceiling, which prevents the boys from sleeping over. The house certainly looks cramped, but there are tricks. He keeps his shoes outside in the hallway and, when he works from home, he uses the roof to work outside.
The spectators were stunned. In the comments, people wrote, “It's literally a dressing room. You used your space extremely well," while another posted: "My claustrophobia and anxiety never could."
