Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer serves as a member of the American Democratic party and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Where does he live now?
Chuck Schumer still lives in New York; however, he lives in the Park Slope neighborhood on Prospect Park West. Previously, he infamously lived in a Capitol Hill apartment with a few other Democratic lawmakers that the press dubbed “the Alpha house.”
Although he partly resided in “the Alpha house” for work, Chuck Schumer and his wife, City University of New York Vice-Chancellor Iris Weinshall, purchased their Park Slope apartment in 1982.
9 Prospect Park West
In 2010, The Observer detailed the apparent price of Chuck Schumer’s home as worth approximately ten times what Schumer and Weinshall paid for the place in 1982. This price may have fluctuated since then, given the New York real estate market’s highs and lows.
In 1982, Chuck Schumer bought the prewar Park Slope apartment for $157,000. He has described the apartment as one of his only real financial assets.
Little is known about the apartment itself, although the building has a doorman and the neighborhood is quite luxe. However, the most newsworthy aspect of the apartment is not the place itself but what happens outside.
As a public representative, Chuck Schumer’s Park Slope home is often the site of protests from people looking to engage in the democratic process. The Brooklyn Paper even labeled the apartment “a protest hotspot” in 2017.
The article in the Brooklyn Paper detailed how environmental activists were protesting Chuck Schumer at the time for his record on climate issues. Specifically, their concern at the time was that he would not take a hard stance against former President Donald Trump’s choices for key political positions in the cabinet, including, in the Brooklyn Papers’ words, “ExxonMobile honcho Rex Tillerson for secretary of state.”
One protester told DNAinfo, “We see Schumer primarily as an ally. We’re just trying to encourage him to be more aggressive on these issues. It’s not like we’re protesting Schumer — we’re urging him to be stronger.”
The Alpha House
Before living at 9 Prospect Park West, Chuck Schumer lived in what was known to many on Capitol Hill as “the Alpha House.”
Hilariously, the house itself was not the luxurious apartment that the name suggests, and many compared the living quarters to that of a fraternity house. In this house, several Democratic senators such as Dick Durbin and George Miller lived, along with Chuck Schumer.
CNN Politics profiled the house back in 2013, where Dick Durbin joked that the place was less like the Amazon television show that the house inspired, and more of an “Omega house.”
The apartment was a living situation of convenience after the owner of the house decided to move and shared his home with the Democratic representatives. Roommates moved in and out over the years, sharing the same household with 70’s vinyl, beer fridges, and high-ranking public figures.
A former aide of Chuck Schumer’s told The New York Times in 2002 that, “It’s like the apartments that 25-year-old kids have when they have roommates,” adding that, “’You wouldn’t go there unless you wanted to feast on the Cheez Doodles in the couch.”
Although people enjoyed joking about the dissonance between these high-profile figures and this fraternity-esque home, it was clear that the residents had a soft spot in their hearts for the place.
When The New York Times profiled the house as they moved out in 2014, the Democratic roommates spoke about how much they relied on each other and used the place as an opportunity to develop political policy — and swap parenting advice.
As for where Chuck Schumer stays when near Capitol Hill, he “traded up” from “a bed wedged between the kitchen and the living room” to “the building where one of his daughters lives.” Apparently, he was known in the Alpha house for “trailing food crumbs behind him,” so hopefully, he also cleaned up his act in addition to trading up.
Many citizens that Schumer represents might be surprised to learn about this prior living situation, as most people would typically imagine the home of a high-profile government representative to be a little more luxurious, as embodied by his Park Slope home.
However, maybe there is some comfort in knowing that elected officials also like to hang out with their buddies eating cold cereal just as much as the rest of us do. If you have any questions, well, you know where to find Chuck.