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...

1. If you can make it here… New York has long been the ultimate testing ground for businesses. But the city’s population density also makes it an important laboratory for startups, especially in today’s on-demand economy. Food- delivery pioneer Seamless survived the dot-com crash, paving the way for the arrival of meal-kit services such as Blue Apron and Plated a decade later. Related View this story in its original print layout Density has also been instrumental to the growth of ride-hailing and car-sharing companies. Most of them, including Uber and Lyft first gained their footing in smaller cities, then made New York their biggest market. Via, the on-demand ride-pooling service, launched here in 2013, is the exception: Its founders chose New York, figuring riders packed together on subways and buses wouldn’t need much persuading to share a car with strangers, especially when it cost just $5. article continues below advertisement App- based transportation startups have flocked t...