Video: 1950s Couple Goes DIY On Their Lower East Side Apartment

We just stumbled upon this sweet vintage video on a trip down the Youtube rabbit hole, showing a Manhattan couple trying to make their tiny apartment into a livable space. People from the 1950s: they're just like us!

Meet Jack and Jill (not their real names!), a couple living in a walkup on the Lower East Side in the 1950s. Here they are in their apartment, which is filled with hand-me-downs, trying to renovate their small living space on a small budget. And their amazing renovation is all in thanks to a brochure from... Ohio.

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By Jen Carlson in Arts & Entertainment on January 9, 2012 5:17 PM

Comments [rss]

marcel malfregeot3

Dude, he's totally polishing his knob! Huh, huh...huh...huh

pillow_case

That apartment door is HUUUUGE

heresyourcopy

i hope this starts a resurgence in the lost art of door coverings.

mghallock

Before, Arial.

Grade A Fancy mag

Love this film. Especially the lack of protective gear and inadequate ventilation

esquared

Bowery Boogie posted this back last summer

http://www.boweryboogie.com/20...

James Stephenson

I love that they are using highly toxic and probably flammable chemicals indoors without any kind of protection. Ah, the 50's... "You want cigarettes on that sandwich?"

Park_ing

Yay for cancer!

cr17

1950's PSA's didn't lie.

cr17

Anyone seen Jill lately? She still got those fantastic set of stems?

Eric Gordon

They should have just gone to Ikea.

cr17

And miss out on buying paint from the most nefarious looking man in the world?!? I don't think so.

Eric Gordon

ie his "paint dealer"

cr17

Good catch.

jmkbk llc

That building cannot possibly have an apartment with that layout, fwiw.

Fern Cohen

At the time, the "East Village" was considered part of the LES[the part north of Houston and south of E14th St.], before some real estate agents decided to lure artists and hippies priced out of the newly-gentrified West Village [then referred to as Greenwich Village], with the perception that this part of the LES was the western equivalent of "The Village", much as East Williamsburg is really part of Bushwick and SpaHa is really SPAnish HArlem.

fixilator

Actually, re: East Williamsburg, no. The area (east of Bushwick Ave, north of Flushing) has been referred to as East Williamsburg for decades (at least), long before Williamsburg got gentrified. Bushwick has always been south of Flushing. Although, it's true that it's the same dynamic at work when people call the Morgan stop area (and areas even further west than that) Bushwick; they are expanding the borders of Bushwick because it's "cooler."

nicholas de Rosa

actually the "lower east side" went further north than 14th st if I am not mistaken. I overheard a walking tour last summer and the guide was explaing the exact thing you mentioned.