What is a “micro-studio” in New York City?
Touring The Smallest Apartment In New York City
A2 English listening practice · American English · Picked for people who know a little
A micro-studio is an extremely small New York City apartment, usually under 300 square feet (about 28 square meters). The category took off after a 2013 NYC zoning waiver under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, which allowed new buildings to include units smaller than the previous 400-square-foot minimum. The first micro-units were built in Kips Bay (the Carmel Place building, 2016). Since then, NYC apartment-tour content on YouTube and TikTok has turned micro-studios into a small entertainment genre, where renters compete to show how creatively they fit a kitchen, bathroom, and living room into a single tight square.
In this clip, a host walks through the kitchen, bathroom, and “living room” of an apartment that fits all three into a few hundred square feet.
How common are the words?
How common are the words in this A2 English listening practice video?
How common in written English
How common in spoken English
Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · SUBTLEX-US 2012 (spoken). These numbers are close, not perfect.
- ▸In American NYC apartment-tour YouTube and TikTok (Cash Jordan, Caleb Simpson)
- ▸In American real-estate news (Curbed NY, The New York Times real-estate section)
- ▸In American architecture and small-space-design publications
- ▸In American sitcoms about NYC roommates (Friends, Broad City, Russian Doll)
- ▸In American moving-to-NYC vlogs from college graduates