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It was a warm Thursday in early June at Rockefeller Park, ideal weather for tanning on the grass or kicking around a soccer ball. But on a shady patch under a sprawling river birch, ten teens who had wandered over from Stuyvesant High School assemble themselves into breakout groups to discuss Zohran Mamdani\u2019s recently released housing proposal. \u201cOkay, so a quick overview,\u201d Millan Bisegna, a junior with a mop of wavy, jet-black hair, tells his classmates before reading the plan\u2019s top-line numbers off his phone: $22 billion invested, 400,000 affordable homes built and preserved. \u201cThis is a step in the right direction,\u201d says Eli Smith, also a junior, in a faded Dr. Pepper tee and black denim shorts. The other students nod, their faces serious. \u201cIt\u2019s broken up over ten years, but 20,000 new houses a year is still a lot,\u201d Qasim Rizvi, also 17, also a junior, says. \u201cI don\u2019t even know if that\u2019s achievable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stuyvesant is a magnet for hypersmart, hyperdriven, hypercompetitive teens. One of the city\u2019s premier specialized high schools<\/a>, it has a lower acceptance rate than Harvard \u2014 just 3 percent of nearly 26,000 students who sat for the exam received<\/a> an offer last year. (To say nothing of the parents spending thousands on tutoring and other test prep to give their kids even the slightest edge.) So it was probably inevitable that a contingent of the school\u2019s abundance-loving teens would find each other and start a club to study zoning codes and preach the gospel of YIMBYism: Build, baby, build. Smith and Bisegna formed the club in 2024 and serve as co-presidents. There are currently 30 members \u2014 all of them versed in the jargon of ADUs and MIH and RGB. They speak in the language of \u201cnet goods.\u201d They\u2019re not immune to the neon glow of the Starbucks Lemonade Refresher, but they argue the pros and cons of land-use ballot proposals between sips. And lest you think this is just another way for overly ambitous teens to pad their r\u00e9sum\u00e9s and impress college admissions officers, members insist that Stuyimby lacks the gloss or rigor of, say, debate team or Science Olympiad. \u201cIt\u2019s a decent club, but it\u2019s not as prestigious,\u201d says Andrew Chin, a particularly chatty 17-year-old member and the club\u2019s events director. (Though they don\u2019t have a ton of events.)<\/p>\n Smith and Bisegna have distinct YIMBY origin stories. Smith, who lives in Ditmas Park and at 16 already sounds like the politician he\u2019ll likely one day become, tells me it was living near Coney Island Avenue and its endless blocks of single-story auto shops and self-storage units that he thought should be apartments. His parents, the journalists Ben Smith<\/a> and Liena Zagare, probably had some influence, too: Eli says that Zagare cried after learning the City Council had landmarked their Victorian, basically condemning it to remain a two-family forever. \u201cAs much as I love my neighborhood, if we wanted to tear down our house and build a six-story apartment building, I think we should be allowed,\u201d he says. \u201cI think that would probably be a net good for the neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n Bisegna, who is 17 and more soft-spoken, took a little persuading. The pair first met in their freshman-year biology class and became close after going on a ski trip together. As Smith\u2019s interest in upzoning was taking hold, Bisegna was skeptical \u2014 he had come to resent a blocky seven-story condo development<\/a> called the Rowan that had gone near his home in Astoria a few years earlier. \u201cMy dad was like, \u2018I don\u2019t like the new buildings \u2026 it\u2019s gentrification.\u2019\u201d But over many lunchtime debates, he says, Smith convinced him that more housing would actually preserve what he likes about his neighborhood, not ruin it. Ideally, it would mean he could afford a place of his own one day. \u201cHe helped me bridge that gap and really push for YIMBY ideals,\u201d Bisegna says. Others in Stuyimby came through the experience of watching their parents get squeezed by the market. Tenzin Gyaltsok\u2019s family\u2019s rent went up so much during the pandemic that he says they even considered moving to Pennsylvania. (They ultimately stayed in the neighborhood, but they did move apartments.) Ahead of their first gathering, Smith reached out to Open New York, a pro-development organization, for discussion materials and to generally make contact. \u201cIt\u2019s really impressive. They\u2019re plugged in,\u201d says Asia Thomas, Open New York\u2019s director of organizing.<\/p>\n The club\u2019s twice-a-month meetings are a labor of love \u2014\u00a0just one more thing to add on top\u00a0of studying for Mandarin and psychology exams, prepping for the SAT, and volunteering with local churches and nonprofits. This past year, members say they\u2019ve juggled multiple honors and AP courses, orchestra, mock trial, baseball, cheer, and the robotics team. \u201cI was definitely up later than I would like to have been some nights,\u201d Smith says of the last year.<\/p>\n Meetings, naturally, involve a lot of arguing. Does a new development in Williamsburg deserve an \u201cA\u201d or an \u201cF\u201d grade based on how much affordable housing it offers? (What are the grades for? \u201cMostly for bookkeeping,\u201d Smith says.) And what about increasing NYCHA funding \u2014 is that throwing good money after bad? Chin tells me that he\u2019s still personally struggling with the fact that more housing on the Lower East Side could mean a potential depreciation in the value of his family\u2019s apartment. \u201cIt\u2019s the devil on your shoulder,\u201d he says with a shrug. The debates aren\u2019t merely hypothetical. Half of the student body at Stuyvesant qualifies<\/a> as \u201clow income,\u201d and they\u2019re talking about both the housing they currently live in and the housing they\u2019ll likely need as they age into adulthood in the city. \u201cThere are plenty of smart people at Trinity, but Trinity costs $90,000, and they\u2019re not struggling,\u201d Chin says.<\/p>\n And they actually do stuff, they tell me. Members canvassed Long Island City in the pouring rain with Open New York in support of the OneLIC rezoning. In February, Smith and another member, Evan Yue, cut school and boarded an Open New York\u2013chartered bus to Albany, where they knocked on lawmakers\u2019 doors and passed out postcards from constituents supporting a bill to help religious organizations build affordable housing on their property. \u201cWhen I told my parents what I was doing, they were like, \u2018Finally, you\u2019re doing something,\u2019\u201d Yue, a junior, says. And they were okay with him missing class? \u201cI might\u2019ve breezed past that part,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n At Rockefeller Park, the ice in a teen\u2019s Dunkin\u2019 cup has completely melted as the group wraps up the meeting. The consensus about the mayor\u2019s housing plan seems to be a very adult mix of mild enthusiasm and mild disappointment. But there was a lot on the horizon to consider still, like the Rent Guidelines Board hearings that were underway (the mayor\u2019s proposed two-year rent freeze \u2014\u00a0historic on its own terms \u2014\u00a0eventually passed) and finals and the state Regents \u2014 which were maybe the more immediate concern than the cost of apartments none of them could legally sign a lease for at the moment.\u00a0Everyone packed up. Smith had to hustle over to cheer practice. Did he know any chants about density around transit hubs<\/a>? \u201cIt\u2019s a little bit of a different crowd,\u201d he says. Not that he hasn\u2019t tried to spread the good word there, too: \u201cOnce in a while, I\u2019ll try to sneak it into a conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n Sign Up for the Curbed Newsletter<\/p>\n A daily mix of stories about cities, city life, and our always evolving neighborhoods and skylines.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n