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Renting an apartment in New York can be cost-prohibitive even if you’re making a decent salary you need first and last month’s rent, plus a security deposit and sometimes a broker’s fee. “They can’t believe this is here.” San Miguel, who moved to New York from Miami for an internship, has lived at the Webster for two and a half years.

“People are shocked when you give them a tour,” says resident Andrea San Miguel, a 25-year-old marketing coordinator at NBC. In addition to the rooftop, with front-row views of the Empire State Building, there’s also a landscaped backyard. There’s a theater room and a library, plus two lounges and a hallway of “beau parlors” - a vestigial term for spaces where women could entertain male guests today, they’re equipped with TVs and largely function as miniature living rooms (where male guests are allowed). All rooms are private, and rent - from $560 to $940, calculated on a sliding scale based on salary, every two weeks - includes the two meals (residents rave about the food), as well as laundry and Wi-Fi. An aspiring resident must be a full-time intern or be working a minimum of 35 hours per week. Ninety-six years after opening, it houses between 800 and 1,000 working women per year. Residents of the Webster Apartments include Janna Barrett and Marie Kuepper in one of the “beau parlors,” aka shared living rooms. Macy, whose eponymous department store employed hundreds of young women. It was founded by brothers Charles and Josiah Webster, who came to New York to work with Roland H. But the Webster is, and always has been, for the working woman. Of the nine that remain, seven are run by Christian charities (six by Catholic nuns). The most recent to succumb to developers were the Brandon Residence, which sold for $42 million in 2017, and the El Carmelo Residence, whose West 14th Street building was razed to make way for luxury condominiums. Some hotels started admitting men (the Barbizon in 1981) many buildings were sold off and redeveloped. It’s not clear just how many women-only residences once existed, but they started to dwindle as real estate became more expensive later in the 1900s. Once a place where rooms went for $24/week - and now condos - Lauren Bacall, Joan Crawford, Grace Kelly and Sylvia Plath (whose novel “The Bell Jar” features the hotel) were celebrities who cemented it as a stylish and sought-after place to live. The most famous women-only residence was the Barbizon, opened in 1927 on East 63rd Street.

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“These were not young women who wanted to be told how to behave.” Many of the residences that opened during this heyday were started or run by women, like the Martha Washington on East 29th Street (now a hotel) and the Panhellenic Tower on Mitchell Place off First Avenue (now the Beekman Tower, which has a hotel and apartments). “You began to see the term ‘business woman,’ ” Harkrader says. “They were about raising women to be good wives,” adds Harkrader.īut as more women started graduating from college during the first two decades of the 20th century, there was a shift. “Large numbers of women in the city created a lot of unease.” The general public worried about the safety and propriety of these independent pioneers, so many of the first buildings had a “heavy moral overlay.” Then, the homes served as a stopover on the road to marriage.

“From the perspective of how society is structured, this was very disruptive,” says Harkrader, who is working on a book about the history of women-only housing. By 1899, there were between 60,000 and 70,000 self-supporting women in New York, according to historian Nina Harkrader. The such first housing was developed in the late 19th century as women started working out of the home. Annie Wermielīut when the Webster opened in 1923, there were dozens of hotels and homes across Manhattan built expressly to serve women. Rates at the Centro Maria Residence range from $215/week for a triple. Rules vary by location, with some imposing curfews and banning alcohol, but they all have one thing in common: no boys allowed.

By The Post’s count, there are just nine left, including Chelsea’s Jeanne d’Arc Residence, the East Village’s Pink Dorms and Midtown West’s Centro Maria Residence - all boasting rich histories and satisfied modern-day denizens. The Webster is one of the last women-only residences in New York City. Here, at the 376-unit Webster Apartments, one can pay as little as $1,430 per month in rent. On West 34th Street between Ninth and 10th avenues, there’s a building with a landscaped rooftop terrace, a chef who provides two meals per day (leg of lamb with ratatouille casserole at a recent dinner) and a housekeeper who changes the sheets once a week.

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