Co-op living in the city

March 15, 2007

Home > Life Photos by Robert Kirkham/Buffalo News Wednesday night dinners draw almost all the residents of the house at Elmwood and North, as well as guests and friends. But residents say they have plenty of opportunities for privacy, too. Click to view a larger picture Robert Kirkham/Buffalo News “The more people who work together, the more good work you can do and the more interesting people you’ll meet,” says Nickel City Co-op resident Kirk Laubenstein. Click to view a larger picture Scenes from a Wednesday night potluck dinner in the Granger Mansion, one of two houses in the Nickel City Housing Cooperative. From left, Bhakti Williams-Brown, 7, who lives with his mother in the house, helps himself to rice; diners wash their plates after eating; and Luanne Tunmore and Peter Firestone relax in her room. Click to view a larger picture Co-op living in the city In a new spirit of communal living, young people find sharing a home, food and chores is economical — and rewarding By Anne Neville - News Staff ReporterUpdated: 03/13/07 8:03 AM SAVE EMAIL PRINT POPULAR + Larger Font + Smaller Font The first question is always about the bathrooms. “It isn’t that bad,” says Kirk Laubenstein, who lives with 13 other people in the original house operated by the Nickel City Housing Cooperative, the 122-year-old Granger mansion at Elmwood Avenue and North Street. “We have 3½ baths, and the most I’ve ever had to wait for a shower is like five minutes, and you could do that anywhere if you had kids or a roommate. It’s not a real issue.” But it’s the basics of living — chores,

bathrooms, meals and just spending that much time with that many people — that fascinates people about life at the city’s housing co-op. As of August, the North Street house is no longer alone. The parent body that holds the mortgage on the house at 208 North St. purchased a house at 126 Fargo Ave., at Jersey, on the West Side. That house is being renovated slowly, with five residents and rooms becoming available one by one. In keeping with the creative, freewheeling spirit of the cooperative movement, both houses have nicknames. After a residents’ competition, “Ol’ Wondermoth” was chosen for the North Street home. “It’s an anagram of Elmwood and North,” says Laubenstein, laughing. “We’re such dorks.” The Fargo Avenue home goes by the name of “Plankton.” The residents of the Granger mansion share vegan food when they gather for their five weekly dinners and Sunday brunch, and shelves outside the downstairs kitchen are a “Free store,” with the sign,

“Take what you want, give what you don’t.” But the group is far from a time-warp dwelling bunch of laid-back hippies. With their commitment to improving their neighborhood and their community, this group of hard-working, creative young people is pioneering a new way of living in Buffalo. ‘Just keep rolling’ The experiment began back in 2001, when two current members, Emily Ng and Kevin O’Sullivan, visited a co-op in Ithaca. Inspired by a way of life that allows residents more selfdetermination and independence, they returned to Buffalo and bid at an auction on the vacant building at Elmwood and North, the Granger Mansion. Although the mansion E.B. Green had designed for grocer Edmund Granger in 1885 was imposing outside and luxurious inside, it had fallen on hard times. It had been used as offices, then abandoned for several years. The magnificent slate roof was pocked with holes, and homeless people had taken up

residence. To pay for the house and start funding repairs, the founding members partnered with North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO) in Ann Arbor, Mich., whose property arm owns co-ops from Santa Cruz to Austin. The first residents moved in in March 2003. “We’ve gone from 20 buckets [to catch rain from roof leaks] to, just recently, zero buckets,” says Laubenstein proudly. “We live in an intermediate space, I guess, between ownership” and renting, says Loren Sonnenberg, who has lived in the house for almost two years. When the mortgage on the house is paid off, NASCO will remortgage it and use the funds to start another co-op. “The plan is to just keep rolling,” says Laubenstein. Why they join Who chooses a co-op over life with one housemate, a family member, or alone? So far, all the Granger Mansion residents fall within a fairly narrow age range, from 23 to 30, “plus one

7-year-old,” who lives there part time with his mother, a resident. Laubenstein says some residents are from the suburbs, while others are UB students or graduates. For himself, Sonnenberg says he’s “very comfortable living with large groups of people; I’m a pretty social person generally.” So when he tells people about the co-op, he says, “some people are surprised because they can’t imagine themselves living with so many people, but I don’t know anybody who is surprised that I would live in that situation.” In a film he’s making about the co-op, Sonnenberg is exploring residents’ reasons for joining. “You have a whole group of people in the same house and to a certain degree you assume their values are similar, but everybody’s in it for a different reason,” he says. “Whether it’s that you want to live with a group of people who seem to be healthy and to be in a good place in their lives, or you want to learn from the other people, or contribute

to the community with them, or you see this as a way to having access to good food, and being able to afford it — there are a million different reasons.” And with the underpinning principles of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity, things hum along well in Ol’ Wondermoth, the residents say. Every room is different, with different combinations of windows, closet space and views. The rooms on the third floor have a breathtaking view of the downtown skyline. Rents range from $215 to $350 for the largest room, which can be occupied by two people. Residents also pay $100 a month for food, which Laubenstein says “includes all the vegan and vegetarian food you could ever want.” Members take turns cooking dinners Sunday through Thursday, and Sunday brunch as well. The cooking is done in a well-appointed kitchen downstairs. The lacquered wood counter was salvaged from a bowling

alley that was being demolished; the industrial range and refrigerator came from the same place. The refrigerator and pantry are well-stocked, and “all the food in the fridge except for one personal shelf is for the group,” says Laubenstein. Food is bought in bulk from the Lexington Co-op and from local farmers through Community Supported Agriculture programs. Every Wednesday, the Granger Mansion is the site of an open potluck dinner for anyone interested in the co-op concept. On a recent winter night, the large dining room table fills as people grab a plate and bowl, serving themselves a vegetable and brown rice stir-fry and kale soup. Platters of vegan sushitype rolls are set on the table, and a few dozen people settle in to eat and talk. As people finish eating, a round-robin conversation begins in which people are asked to name the best and worst things that have happened in the week so far. Bhakti Williams-Brown, the 7-year-old, participates

seriously and thoughtfully, and is listened to with respect. Togetherness — or not The residents admit that coop living forces people to make some changes in their lives and expectations. Every decision about the house has to be discussed and agreed upon by the residents at one of their Sunday night meetings. For people who don’t live in a co-op, “if you want different food available, you just go out and do it — you don’t need to talk with 13 other people about it, and deal with compromise,” says Sonnenberg. “Bringing that many people with different points of view into agreement can be tricky, but you do learn to work with the group and not get frustrated.” This lack of instant decision making isn’t all bad, Sonnenberg says. “I think people nowadays place convenience over most other things in their life. People are pretty hesitant to give up that ability to make all of their own decisions individually.” What they don’t give up, says members, is privacy. “We mostly have our own rooms, so if you need your privacy, you go to your room and shut the door and nobody bothers you,” says Laubenstein. But members can even find themselves alone in the reading room, living room, kitchen or one of the other public spaces. “A lot of the people in the house work different jobs and different hours, and have different interests and hobbies,” says Sonnenberg. “So at any one time, only about half the people in the house are there, except for dinnertime. People are so spread out and the house is so big that you don’t see everybody at once.” Assigning chores Another difference between living alone and living cooperatively is the chores. Bills must be paid, mail sorted, food bought, meals cooked, bathrooms cleaned. Those chores are assigned by a choreographer (say chore-e-ographer), with each members assigned a few tasks that will

take about four hours a week to complete. “We all have to do chores, you do them in your own house, we do them here,” says Laubenstein. “Everything runs well, and the house is relatively clean, and it always surprises me that we do such a decent job at it.” Whether they are cleaning the house or helping other members with job referrals, study help or just a sympathetic ear, members agree that the group, in sort of an energetic synergy, is stronger than its individual members. Laubenstein says, “The more people who work together, the more good work you can do and the more interesting people you’ll meet. Living here has allowed me to do other things I really want to do with my life, like get involved with PUSH and community gardening.” “I know our house was in pretty bad shape when we got it, and the house over on Fargo was in rough shape, too,” says Sonnenberg. “To be able to buy houses that are 100, 110, 120 years old, and repair

them, I feel that contributes a lot to the neighborhood, not by us physically being out in the community, but just by renovating those homes.” For information, go to www.nickelcitycoop.org. Peter H

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