CITIES: The Best of Everything

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Prowling around Manhattan's Greenwich Village one afternoon on that chronic mission of New Yorkers, hunting for an apartment, a TV director named Michael Gargiulo was approached by a young man with the furtive but intense air of a dirty-postcard salesman. "You looking for an apartment?" he muttered hopefully. Gargiulo acknowledged that he was, and the young man promptly offered to sublet his own one-bedroom diggings at a bargain rental. But the apartment was too small for Gargiulo, and he strolled on—only to run into two more apartment dwellers with subletting bargains to offer. By coincidence—or maybe not by coincidence—all three of the eager would-be subletters were tenants at the same nearb 7 apartment project: the huge (1,300 apartments), many-balconied Washington Square Village.

"Electronic Living." Much-advertised Washington Square Village burst upon New Yorkers' consciousness about two years ago in a flossy brochure that spread out a tempting smorgasbord of the good urban life: "A new conception of city living . . . privacy and space heretofore undreamed of in New York City . . . electronic living," and so and on. "If you read that," mourns a discontented W.S.V. tenant (rent: $353 a month), "what would you expect? You'd expect the best of everything."

Expecting the best of everything, prospective tenants flocked to sign three-year leases at fancy rents ($140-$75O a month) while W.S.V. was little more than a big hole in the ground—dug with the aid of $10 million in federal and municipal slum-clearance funds.

"Faction for Action." Like many utopias before it. Washington Square Village fell short of its promise. The "carports" and "self-contained shopping" promised in the brochure failed to materialize. Ten ants complained of "tinny" stoves, faulty airconditioning, erratic elevators, bugs in the basement, cracks in the plaster, rips in the corridor wall covering.

"And my God, the soundproofing!1' groans another embittered tenant. "Somebody above wakes me up every morning playing Chopin on the piano." Adds Fran Weiss: "When the guy next door says to his wife, 'Roll over,' I roll over."

Unlike most suffering dwellers in the new ziggurats of Manhattan, the Washington Square Villagers rebelled, formed a Tenants Association (324 members) to struggle with the management. But the association proved to be too tame for Fran Weiss and some other angry tenants, who split off into a "Faction for Action." Artistic tenants contributed cartoons (see cut) to the cause. Last week the Tenants Association was quarreling with the Faction for Action, the Faction for Action was making plans to sue the management, and the management was advertising that "the flowers are blooming, the fountains are spouting. New Yorkers are renting at Washington Square Village . . ."