200 Brighton 15th street is a 6 story building located in the historic Brighton Beach neighbourhood of Brooklyn. It was built in 1951 and features 96 units (many of which have been subdivided) with access to a shared laundry, a live-in supermarket, an elevator and indoor and outdoor parking. Pets are allowed.

It is a few minutes’ walk from Brighton Beach Station, which services the B and Q lines and can take someone to Manhattan in about an hour. The same journey takes 30 minutes by car if there are no traffic delays.

Markus Chemnitz uses an illegal cellar studio apartment in the building as a bolt hole. Rented out at a third below regular market rates, it ‘inconveniently’ has no windows and payment of rent is in cash only. The corridor leading to the cellar studios can be accessed from the underground parking lot and a stairway that comes down from the ground floor and leads further down to the parking area.

The studio walls are thick foundation concrete but the door is made of wood. Hardwood floors and whitewash have been laid out to render the space more liveable. The space features a separate bathroom/shower, and a living room/kitchen/bedroom combination. The space has not been renovated since it was constructed, and Markus has purchased the second hand furnishings from the previous owners, an entrepreneurial Belorussian migrant couple who recently had a child.