"One Size (Small) Fits All"

The New York Times | February 20, 2013

The so-called micro-pad is now a buzz phrase and a cultural touchstone, thanks to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. But when single-room living was being sketched out in the floor plans of Manhattan’s first apartment buildings, particularly during the boom years of the 1920s, it was called the studio apartment.

Designed for the eager young women and men on a budget who were flocking to the city, the romantic label was intended to evoke the glamour and Bohemianism of the artist’s preferred mode of living. Studio was a “magic word,” as Anatole Broyard once wrote about his own dive apartment on Prince Street in the 1940s.

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