A $15,000 Tent

Rising rents are forcing New Yorkers to devise all sorts of ingenious coping adaptations. As seen at right, a man has been camped out in a Harlem park for many days in a poorly hidden tent. He has had to endure sub-freezing temperatures and at least one late winter snowstorm, but on the other hand, he hasn’t had to pay a cent for what would be costly Manhattan real estate. Prices for townhouses in Harlem have reached $501 per square foot. If that tent occupies, say, 30 square feet, the New York City Parks Department could sell the tent’s owner the land underneath it for $15,030. I wonder what Henry J. Stern, the former parks commissioner, would say about that idea. Mr. Stern has founded a civic group, New York Civic, that addresses issues of city planning.