{"id":152901,"date":"2026-03-04T21:29:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T21:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/152901\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T21:29:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T21:29:12","slug":"whatsapp-neighbor-the-rise-of-the-building-group-chats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/152901\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019sApp, Neighbor? The Rise of the Building Group Chats."},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n Photo-Illustration: Curbed; Photos: Apple, Getty\n <\/p>\n

This past October, as I sat in my parents\u2019 garage on Long Island, taping up boxes, stuffing clothes into suitcases, and counting the growing number of items I\u2019d accumulated for the moving trucks, I considered how to introduce myself to the tenants of my new Bed-Stuy building. My landlord had added me to the building\u2019s WhatsApp group five days prior, and I\u2019d been overthinking how to enter the chat ever since. Name, sure. But age? Profession? Tendency to practice yoga at odd times? An apology in advance for triggering the fire alarm due to an inability to properly use a gas stove?<\/p>\n

Coming back to New York after living in Paris for nearly a decade, I was surprised that such a group even existed. For one, it\u2019s taken me ages to get any of my American friends to use WhatsApp to begin with, when it had been the de facto way to communicate in Europe. But mostly I was surprised because in the 13 years I\u2019d lived in NYC before moving abroad, I could go years without knowing my neighbors\u2019 names. In Paris, on the other hand, it was considered rude if you didn\u2019t say \u201cbonjour\u201d to the butcher, the baker, and the actual candlestick-maker, let alone someone you lived next door to.<\/p>\n

It appeared that something had shifted. Talking to your neighbors, at least online, has become a lot easier \u2014 and even customary. When I hired Compass broker Erin Kirschenbaum to help me find an apartment, she would often talk about a building\u2019s WhatsApp group as if it were an amenity<\/a>. \u201cAs a broker, you\u2019re never able to describe the exact makeup of a building in terms of who the neighbors are for fair-housing purposes, but you are certainly able to say there is lively and warm communication happening,\u201d she says. In her experience, renters see \u201cany positive and active internal communication as a plus,\u201d and typically, she said, \u201cthat\u2019s what WhatsApp groups offer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once I moved into my building and started mentioning its WhatsApp group to others, it turned out a lot of people had one too. In the case of Ross Belfer, who lives in an industrial high-rise in Redhook, his 55-member WhatsApp group is the place to write, \u201cHey, I\u2019m on the roof. Anyone\u2019s welcome to come have a glass of wine.\u201d Belfer, a single father to 5-year-old Henri and a goldendoodle named Grover, also messages the group to arrange impromptu playdates for his son. \u201cI just write in the WhatsApp group, \u2018Any kids under the age of 12 are welcome to come over and play on Henri\u2019s trampoline!\u2019 and they come knocking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many building WhatsApp chats have branched out into an ever-growing number of subgroups; chats for tenants with kids, those with dogs, those into gardening, one for owners and another for renters, and the always useful buy\/sell\/trade chat<\/a>. Ariel Abramowitz is a member of five different WhatsApp groups in her Harlem building (it has eight total), including one for pet owners. Not only is she finally learning fellow dog owners\u2019 names \u2014 \u201cThat\u2019s a classic thing if you\u2019re a dog owner, you know the dog\u2019s name, but you didn\u2019t know the owner\u2019s name\u201d \u2014\u00a0but she gets trusted vet recommendations and knows who to ask for extra poop bags and treats if she runs out.<\/p>\n

For the most part, the chatter in the groups is logistical. It\u2019s a lot of \u201cAnybody else having brown water come through the kitchen sink?\u201d \u201cHas anyone else had success with the water pressure by changing the showerhead?\u201d and \u201cMy flight was delayed, can someone store my Cook Unity delivery?\u201d Package pickup \u2014 and theft <\/a>\u2014 naturally make up a big percentage of what\u2019s discussed in the chats, including my own. The groups are also the ideal forum for offering up fresh-baked brownies if you have a surplus or, as I saw in one group, extra stacks of hay \u201cfor your stoop decoration or pet horse.\u201d I quickly learned, however, that not everything moves; after I offered, in my 30-member group, an extra (sealed) container of perfectly fresh New Zealand mussels from my family\u2019s seafood-distribution business \u2026 crickets.<\/p>\n

The groups also seem to facilitate a next level of neighborliness that I\u2019ve yet to take advantage of: letting members inside your apartment when no one\u2019s home. I suspect I will get there eventually, especially so that someone can water my plants when I\u2019m away or check if I\u2019ve left the oven on, a thought I have almost daily as soon as I\u2019ve left the apartment. But even if I\u2019ve yet to give my neighbors a copy of the keys, I\u2019ve spoken to plenty of people who seem to have no qualms about doing that. \u201cYou\u2019re kind of operating in good faith with all these people,\u201d says David Palmieri, who\u2019s been a member of his Upper West Side building\u2019s group for a year and mostly uses it for \u201clow stakes\u201d requests like lightbulbs or secondhand merch for his kid. He credits the \u201csofter initial interaction\u201d of screen chatter as an informal vetting process: \u201cThen, when you see them in the elevator, you kind of put a face to a name, and you\u2019re a little bit more comfortable. It\u2019s less awkward than knocking on someone\u2019s door.\u201d It\u2019s also much easier than asking a friend to shlep across town to shovel your stoop if you\u2019re away or to take in a package.<\/p>\n

For Tiffany Yanetta, her Crown Heights building group became the best place to discuss how to press the management about not having access to balconies because of construction work.\u00a0\u201cWe collectively sent a letter asking for a rent reduction during those months, and we got it,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t know if that would\u2019ve happened without the group, so that was major.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, as with any group, there are some challenges. Or should I say, challenging people. You know, the \u201cchitty, chatty cheerleader types\u201d who send messages 24\/7, said one member who preferred to remain anonymous. Like, \u201cOh gosh, we\u2019re hearing from X, Y, and Z again!\u201d Or the members who forget about basic group-chat etiquette and discuss things that should be taken into smaller groups or offline, like owners publicly discussing how much they should charge renters in a shared owner-renter group.<\/p>\n

The best way to ward off conflict, suggests Abramowitz, is to limit public messages on a certain subject to two-to-three reply-alls max, before taking it to a DM. But ultimately, she admits, \u201cThere\u2019s no real moderator or adult in charge.\u201d It seems inevitable that what happens in the WhatsApp group mirrors online norms in general. \u201cI think we\u2019ve gotten very comfortable as a society just yelling shit online instead of being like, \u2018Okay, what is or isn\u2019t inappropriate to say to people who literally live next door to me?\u201d There is always, of course, the option to mute or exit the group, which is now possible to do quietly, without announcing it or leaving behind a digital trail. But no one I spoke to felt the need to go that far \u2014 yet.<\/p>\n

In some cases, the buildingwide WhatsApp might expand into something even more familiar: the block association. The residents of 3rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Park Slope now have a blockwide WhatsApp group that consists of 156 members from eight subgroups in a combo of rental buildings, condos, co-ops, and single- and multi-family brownstones.<\/p>\n

Alexandra Carter, a real-estate agent with Corcoran, is one of the group\u2019s admins. She remembers when they were raising only about $500 for their annual block party before they started the channel. Now they\u2019re raising upward of $4,000, which covers the cost of two bouncy houses, craft stations, chocolate tastings, and more. Beyond the fundraising, though, it\u2019s where everything else gets coordinated: Who\u2019s cooking, who\u2019s bringing the supplies, who\u2019s doing the outreach, who\u2019s inviting whom. And all that party planning, in turn, meant one annual block party grew into two, which spurred a discussion about blockwide spring planting, which prompted more casual interactions on the street and everyday acts of generosity, like Carter\u2019s next-door neighbors shoveling her sidewalk when they thought she wasn\u2019t home (she was). Their WhatsApp megagroup has split off into even more subchannels, side projects, and IRL meetups. Still, some things have not changed. Carter said someone recently asked for an egg in the chat and she knew what would happen: \u201cYou\u2019re gonna get that egg.\u201d<\/p>\n

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