Remember the days when a two bedroom apartment on Ave B and 11th St. was $1500/month. Well, those days are sadly, but obviously, gone. Which is painful enough as it is — everyone had a Boheme dream of living in what used to be an outskirt nabe.

Now the only fringe neighborhoods left are random Brooklyn locales like Greenwood Heights. Why? Because the tourists are renting your dreams.

As the city faces a serious shortage of low-cost housing for its own residents, building owners are turning existing units into hotel rooms, hostels and corporate housing for out-of-towners.

The trend is most noticeable in Manhattan neighborhoods where the supply of low-cost units was already dwindling and the demand for tourist rooms has shot up.

Landlords can up charge for rooms, and out-of-towners will pay $40-$150 per night, since it's about half the price of most New York City hotels. Does anyone care that our city is going to be a circus from Midtown to SoHo and everywhere in between?

Pretty soon there will be fake LV bags in Gramercy Park. Oh, well, as long as the Frenchies are happy, and they keep pouring money into restaurants and shops. Too bad none of them were in Prada this weekend, right?

Tenants Losing to the Tourists, Room by Room [Janny Scott, NYT]