Construction Maison

In 2013, Randy Dillard was living with his four sons and a daughter in an apartment at 198th Street and Bainbridge in the Bronx. The windows were broken; mold and mildew streaked the walls. In the winter, Dillard’s family had to boil water on the stove to bathe; there was no heat or hot water. When the New York City Housing Authority conducted an inspection of the apartment on behalf of Section 8, the federal rent assistance program that financed Dillard ’s rental, the unit failed the test, and Section 8 stopped paying Dillard ’s landlord, demanding that he make repairs. That winter, Dillard was hospitalized for two months with a bout of emphysema; when he came out, he was served with eviction papers for nonpayment of rent. advertisement “I stood in the middle of my hallway looking around my apartment thinking: What am I going to do with my stuff?” Dillard tells Fast Company . “I told myself: I’m going to end up homeless. I’m going to wind up in a shelter.” Dillard got word of a Bron...

Building and side lot with big tree at 1741 N. Western Ave. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Alisa Hauser BUCKTOWN  — A developer wants to bring a 37- unit apartment building to the Bucktown and Wicker Park border , just south of where the 606's elevated Bloomingdale Trail crosses Western Avenue and less than two blocks from the CTA Blue Line Western station . Michael Lerner, founder of MCZ Development, has requested a new zoning designation to allow for the five-story building at 1737-1741 N. Western Ave., city records show . Introduced in July, the zoning request was referred to the city's committee on Zoning, Landmarks and Building Standards but no action has been taken. "It's still under review and we are working out some of the details on exactly how many units and how big they should be. It's still a work in progress," Paul Sajovec, chief of staff to 32nd Ward Ald. Scott Waguespack, said on Tuesday. Lerner is proposing to replace the vintage building at 1...

'Your home is wherever you stop and that's what's really, really cool about that whole idea' Rain patters on the roof of John Salhany's 2006 Mercedes Sprinter van as he points out the half-finished ceiling of tongue-and- groove pine paneling that will eventually continue down the walls over layers of plywood and reflective insulation. Items strewn in the hollowed back include a dusty climbing rope , a road bike and a six-pack of Upslope Brewing Company 's Citra Pale Ale . All his essentials will soon have their places once the van build-out is complete, when Salhany will have a bed big enough to accommodate all 6 feet, 2 inches of him, a countertop with a sink and drawers, and maybe even a backsplash with the cutout of the mountains — amenities like that of a house. "I have a lot of friends who are buying houses right now who are just getting to that age, all on the East Coast and I'm just like, how do you guys know where you want to live?" said...

This week on Recode Media with Peter Kafka , writer Chuck Klosterman called into the studio to talk about his career in journalism and his new book, “Chuck Klosterman X.” (The X is a Roman numeral 10, as in this is his 10th book.) The two discuss trends in journalism, writing about the famous and whether football will disappear. You can read some of the highlights from the interview here, or listen to it in the audio player above. Below, we’ve also provided a lightly edited complete transcript of their conversation. If you like this, be sure to subscribe to Recode Media on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Overcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. Peter Kafka: This is Recode Media with Peter Kafka. That’s me. I am part of the Vox Media Podcast Network . I’m here at the Vox Media podcast studio , sitting all by myself because ... This doesn’t happen very often. I think only once before ... our guest is not in studio with me. He’s in Portland. He’s Chuck Klosterman. Hey, Chuck....