• Home
  • Archive
  • About
  • Awards & Media
  • Contact
    • Facebook
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter

Courting Destiny

  • Courting Classics
  • Fiction
  • Mainstream Media
  • New York Stories
  • My Parents
  • Mental Health
  • N. Myrtle Beach

Sign Up For My Weekly Newsletter!

Why I bought my apartment

April 12, 2006 By pia

All that I had ever wanted out of life besides writing a bestseller so that maybe I could be a guest on Letterman was a coop on the Upper West Side

The housing market began its long road to Titaniumville in 1994. By 1996 when I was ready to buy an apartment, owners had heard and were beginning to test the waters. Every Sunday Lucia and I would go to open houses and during the week I would meet with brokers.

Lucia was a girl contractor. She knew plaster, and almost everything that there is to know except for plumbing. We would go to open houses and want to puke. People would make a 500 foot one bedroom look even smaller by not clearing out the clutter, cleaning or washing the windows.

No matter how large the one bedroom was, it always had one small bathroom with a standard issue tub and no windows.

When I would meet with brokers I would give a specific geographic location and they would insist on showing me apartments outside the parameter. I was serious when I said that I wanted to live as far West of Broadway between but not including West 86th and West 73rd. My mother was blind; she didn’t understand that the early West 100’s has some of the best apartments and had the best buys in town. It’s lovely, there’s a true park on Broadway, French seeming cafes. She would never have slept at night and my life would have been one giant guilt attack. Well anyway.

I didn’t want to see an apartment in Lincoln Towers. I had moved from my pre-war studio on East 63rd near Fifth, to Riverdale, the Bronx, hated it, and spent my life feeling as if I were living in a second rate motel with an ugly Miami Beach 60’s lobby.

I’m an apartment snob. I like prewar in good buildings. The ones that I saw all needed gut rehab. There was an apartment in the Beresford that was going for 175K, I could have gotten it for less, and it needed a hundred K or more worth of work. Seemed like way too much work. It was on Central Park West and had the tree view. I’m allergic to most trees and grasses in the New York area. I can’t imagine how much it’s worth now. When Seinfeld passed the coop board, he reportedly became very excited and repeated “I’m a Beresford boy, I’m a Beresford boy.” I didn’t want to be a Beresford girl. If I couldn’t have the ocean I wanted the Hudson River.

Lucia and I saw condos where we would be the only non Asians. They only went to certain buildings because of the feng shui, but I wouldn’t want to live on the first floor floor facing the street when the buildings across the street contained both a public housing project and a school.

Okay I’m a snob. And I had been living across from NY’s noisiest middle school, in Riverdale, and there was constant activity from six AM to Midnight during spring to summer, and fall. If I was going to buy an apartment, technically shares in the building, it was going to be on my terms

Yes this is NY and one sacrifices to live here. But we don’t have to sacrifice everything. July came. I had been looking for a year, and looking seriously, with financing in place, the bank of Pia, for six months. I had planned to spend 150K but upped it to 180K, because anything less was truly horrible. I knew that if I didn’t find an apartment within the next month I would be priced out of the market. Prices were rising rapidly.

On my birthday, Saturday, July 19, remember that date, I circled 21 ads. I couldn’t go to open houses the next day because my family was coming in, so I called the brokers. Seven out of 21 got back to me.

One apartment sounded promising,”open city views, gut renovated, north and east exposures, steps from park.” Whenever they say park in NY ads they mean Riverside because most people want Central Park. I had lived off Central Park for fifteen wonderful years, and was ready for a new experience.. Actually I lived near the Hudson in Riverdale and had an incredible view of the Trade Center, river and George Washington Bridge. But there was no access to the Hudson itself which was sick.

Lucia and I went to the building, that had been listed in the West 70’s section but had a Riverside Drive address. As soon as I looked at the building I knew that I had found my home. The lobby was shabby chic elegant with a marble floor, and something intangible that made my heart pound. I so hoped on the elevator ride up I would love the apartment.

The wing on the ninth floor had truly gross wallpaper; I didn’t like it at all. But when the broker opened the apartment door to a granite floor, which wasn’t that common then, my heart pounded more. The kitchen was on the side, and the octagaonal sink made up for a lot.

The walls were all even, the apartment was freshly painted, and had two large windows in the living room facing East and West End Avenue, and two large windows, facing North and the West 80’s in what appeared to be the tiniest bedroom in the world. Everything was modern yet adhered to the integrity of a prewar apartment. I loved it.

Most of all I loved the tiny half bath in the bedroom with room for a toilet on one side, a sink on the other, and a window in the middle. It’s all white tiled with a subway tile floor. I loved it.

I didn’t love it half as much as I loved the bathroom off the living room: 12′ by six feet with a marble floor, marble double shower, separate large bath, and window.

They were asking $189,000. In 1997, you could still bid lower so I took $9,000 off the price. I still think I bought one of the biggest bargains in New York. I have 600 prime square feet, six windows, and two of them are in the bathrooms. Whatever I accomplish in life will pale against buying this apartment.

It is true that passing a New York Coop board, in a knew it was going to get hotter than hot building, surpasses most of life’s great achievements. Kind of sad, but I’m proud.

I did the board package by myself; I prepared for the board interview like nobody has ever done before. I’m ready to leave NY, but I’m not ready to leave my apartment though it’s way too small, has the cutest most impractical kitchen in the history of kitchens, a dishwasher can’t be hooked up the sink, I learned that the hard way, and there’s absolutely no room for a washer dryer.

People tell me to make the bedroom bath into washer dryer room. Never. I know what my priorities are.

Filed Under: 9/11, New York Stories Tagged With: 9/11, New York Stories

« The Patron Never Saint of blog causes. BIO edition
Happy Passover; Happy Easter, and if I left any out, Happy Spring »

Comments

  1. Shayna says

    April 12, 2006 at 9:30 am

    Oh how I would do anything to have that prime 600 square feet… 🙂 ANYTHING!!! Trade you my 2300 square feet house and all my acres… Seriously!!! 🙂

  2. dan says

    April 12, 2006 at 9:07 pm

    Don’t tell anyone, but I love those HGTV shows where they rearrange stuff to sell the house and it basically comes down to removing personal items and knick knacks… and how much of a difference in how you see the house that makes.

  3. Cowgirl says

    April 12, 2006 at 10:25 pm

    Laundry is not my priority either.

  4. sagecoveredhills says

    April 12, 2006 at 10:32 pm

    WOW, it sounds like a bargain until I compare it to a refinished 1900 farmhouse with 10 acres and a barn for just a bit more… But I’d have to move 5 miles out of town.

  5. Marinade Dave says

    April 12, 2006 at 10:40 pm

    It sounds like you’ve been living happily ever after there. Why do you want to leave NYC? Where do you want to go?

  6. Bone says

    April 12, 2006 at 11:47 pm

    Two bathrooms? Really?

    I loved this post. With each mention of some place or structure in New York, I became a bit more enchanted. If its possible for there to be degrees of enchantment.

  7. babygirl says

    April 13, 2006 at 6:26 am

    I can almost envision the apartment..sounds lovely.. but the laundry?~~ not even a stackable??

    and where are you going now?

  8. Miz BoheMia says

    April 13, 2006 at 1:20 pm

    The mentality of property acquisition and price relations (have no clue if that makes ANY sense) is very much like San Francisco…

    Laundry… we have it in a room outside of the house so in that sense doesn’t seem like much of a priority but with 4 people, and messy people at that, I seem to live in that room… hmmm…

Search for your favorite post!

Follow Me!

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Sign up Now!

Sign up now and get my latest posts delivered right to your inbox!

About Me

I live in the South, not South Florida, a few blocks from the ocean, and two blocks from the main street. It's called Main Street. Amazes me too.

I'm from New York. I mostly lived in the Mid-Upper East Side, and the heart of the Upper West Side. It amazes me when people talk about how scared they were of Times Square in the 1970's and 1980's.

As my mother said: "know the streets, look out and you'll be fine."

What was scary was the invasion of the crack dens into "good buildings in good 'hoods." And the greedy landlords who did everything they could to get good tenants out of buildings.

I'm a Long Island girl, and proud of it now.
Then I hated everything about the suburbs. Yet somehow I lived in a few great Long Island Sound towns after high school.

Go to archives "August 2004" if you want to begin with the first posts.

Categories

Archives

All material contained herewith is owned by Pia Savage, LLC

Copyright © 2021 Courting Destiny · Designed by Technology-Therapist