Geographical bachelors
O those lovable legislators!
In an episode more worthy of MTV’s Road House than the august Boston Globe, Alex Beam profiles the slovenly and substandard housing conditions confronting those itinerant laborers who come to the
I’m too important to have to clean up.
Even as we chortle at the spectacle of those wacky Markups Brothers in their lair, we should recognize that they illustrate, if not precisely typify, an important slice of housing demand: the geographical bachelor (as he is known in Army parlance) who comes to the city seeking work.
“It was gigantic,” Delahunt insists. “It came out from there, behind the stove. I wrestled the thing to the ground and throttled it. Durbin was asleep upstairs, and Schumer was over in his bedroom –” Delahunt points across an open space to an ancient daybed jammed into a corner “– just trembling.”
“Durbin” is Senator Richard Durbin of
Even among the elite, tribalism governs living arrangements, and like seeks like. Democrats cohabit with Democrats, Republicans with Republicans.
Frivolous though this story may be, it illustrates a fundamental dynamic of affordable housing demand: spatially separated families. While the family remains behind, the breadwinner journeys to the city on the hill:
[Congressman] Miller bought the house for his family in 1977. (They quickly fled back to
Wouldn’t you?
When the breadwinner settles down to maximize income, the family decamps to the country, leaving these geographical bachelors to fend sloppily for themselves:
Welcome to
Like other day laborers, the denizens of 127 D want to walk to work.
Like most legislators, 127’s denizens live in their home districts and maintain a pied a terre in Washington.
Physical separation thus creates specialized housing demand by its fracturing of multi-housing families.
Communities of men working on a task have existed since the pharaohs built the workers’ city outside the
In such cities, a man seeking earned income cares only about maximizing his work activity (and sending his wages home), so he (it is almost invariably men who relocate to the city) is largely indifferent to his physical surroundings (a phenomenon known to wives around the globe as Selective Blindness):
[On] the ground floor … a pair of boxer shorts — a souvenir of a fund-raiser for Senator Barbara Boxer of
People, especially men, will put up with terribly primitive accommodations if it’s temporary, and for the family’s sake. In fact, the financial lure or work and the dismal functionality of the sleeping place — who cares about decorations when you’re only at home to snore? —
What surroundings?
— yield to decor that might be described as Aging Dormitory:
Any resemblance to a Congressman’s room is purely coincidental
Even though the house has been straightened up for visitors, many telling details remain on display. There is the drinks cooler in the fireplace.
All joking aside, men who work long, hard hours away from the civilizing influence of women have a much higher rate of alcoholism (and violence) than the domesticated breed:
The empty picture frames stacked on top of the oven hood. The overturned rat-trap behind the stove. The wicker chairs, whose broken seats have been replaced with ceiling tiles. The floor-to-ceiling mirror motif next to Schumer’s bed. The weathervane, placed high on a 10-foot shelf, depicting a cow labeled “Taxpayer,” being milked by Uncle Sam.
“I guess the cleaning lady couldn’t hide everything,” Delahunt muses.
Men’s living habits seldom pass muster with women:
· When was the last time [Mr. Delahunt] shopped for groceries? “I don’t recall.”
· How terrifying is it to start the day seeing Chuck Schumer in his underwear? “Nothing special.”
Start your day with underwear!
· Who last cooked in this kitchen? “It kind of slips my mind.”
· Has anyone ever tended the Fort Apache-like garden in the past decade? “I’m not sure.”
· Would the tall, rangy Delahunt, one of the Capitol’s more eligible bachelors, bring a female companion back to the house?
Delahunt contemplating whether to bring a female companion back to the house.
While her boss gropes for a fourth way to say “no comment,” Delahunt’s
Federal elected officials aside, such male-only living is not all boyish hijinks and frat house pranks. Men living together in close confinement bring out the aggressors in each other.
Who knows what power struggles take place under this roof?
From the barracks, to the dormitory, to the work house, throughout the centuries employers have created single-sex housing, usually for men, working men. Surrounding several of
Apartheid hostels on the hills outside
Even today, mention of ‘hostels’ brings a shudder to many South Africans.
Whether in
A spokesman for Schumer says his boss found a dead rat in the kitchen “just a few months ago.”
And what about this business card prominently displayed on the kitchen counter: “Adcock’s Trapping Service: Professional Trapper Specializing in the removal of Raccoons, Bats, Birds, Snakes and all other wildlife”?
“That’s a head fake,” Miller insists. “That’s just Delahunt trying to negotiate the rent.”
Portrait of an uncompromising landlord
Boys will be boys?
In dense urban environments, it’s often much more dangerous and criminal than that.
Geographical bachelors … a housing challenge for which the world is not yet prepared.
