Susannah Vila lives in a large studio on the parlor floor of a townhouse in the East Village, but who’s to say how long she’ll be there.
A serial subletter, Ms. Vila, 31, sticks with apartments in much the way Henry VIII stuck with wives. Yes, it’s true she did once manage to stay put for a full year — the current record — in a two-bedroom place near Union Square. But balance that against the apartment above a restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where Ms. Vila departed after just one month — another personal record.
Since transferring from George Washington University to New York University 11 years ago, Ms. Vila, an entrepreneur, has lived in 15 apartments in New York — in neighborhoods including Greenpoint, Fort Greene and Clinton Hill in Brooklyn; and Union Square, the West Village, Hamilton Heights, Morningside Heights, Chelsea and Chinatown in Manhattan.
But Ms. Vila’s moves have not all been domestic. She lived for brief periods — and also sublet — in Mexico City, Peru and Cairo, where she was a founder of the Engine Room, an organization that consults on the use of technology for social change. [Rest of Story]