Photo-Illustration: Curbed; Photo: Hauseit
What better way to spy on our neighbors than to look for the below-the-sight-line details in listing photos of their homes? During this week’s trawl, we found the grand piano of a famous opera star, a British phone booth on West End Avenue, and what seems to be a thriving weed plant in a Park Slope kitchen.
Address: 1010 Fifth Avenue #12B
Price: $11.495 million ($10,535 maintenance)
Photo: MGS GROUP REAL ESTATE
There’s so much expensive-looking art in the listing photos of a three-bedroom across from the Met that one wonders if the silver-walled living room is a conceptual work. Whatever the reason, the silver matches the Juan Muñoz sculpture behind the couch and the Hendrik Kerstens print next to the fireplace titled, appropriately, Aluminum Foil.
Address: 509 2nd Street #3R
Price: $1,175,000 ($1,275 monthly maintenance)
Photo: Hauseit
A reverse-image search turned up no other possibilities for the leaves of a plant in a listing shot of a Park Slope kitchen. It would seem weed is now so legal here that we don’t have to hide it in our listings.
Address: 232 East 6th Street
Price: $3,150,000 ($4,635 monthly maintenance)
It would be a little strange to do laundry next to a Gun Club poster, dine across from a Hank Williams portrait, own thousands of vinyl records, and not work in the music industry. That’s what the listing photos show for a three-bedroom on one of the East Village’s best blocks whose owner was once named one of the city’s most influential agents, repping the Black Keys and the Kills. The Kaplans might be selling because Dave has since taken a job at a different booking agency.
Address: 200 East 65th Street #29N
Price: $4,750,000 ( $4,834 monthly maintenance)
Photo: Sotheby’s International Realty
Curious who had decorated a fabulous 1980s time capsule with a Harvard throw pillow, we looked up the address of the living room in this listing shot. It comes up as the location for the law practice of Jay Goldberg, who represented Trump.
Address: 25 West End Avenue #6AB
Price: $8,995,000 ($11,988 monthly maintenance)
Photo: Compass
Most New Yorkers have so little space that the idea of having both a toaster oven and a toaster would be ludicrous, but this co-op has 13 rooms, over 5,500 square feet, and a listing that describes separate “wings.” So of course there’s room for extras, and a photo of a foyer shows a British-style telephone booth around what’s either a classic landline or the phone that calls down to the doorman.
Address: 311 West 74th Street
Price: $8,950,000 ($3,598 monthly taxes)
This townhouse right off Riverside Park has a wild backstory, according to historian Tom Miller, who found its owner at the turn of the century was a friend of Mark Twain’s. Seventy-three years later, the house sold to the creator of the Newport Jazz Festival, who used it for the festival’s offices and for his “wine storage space.” It has since sold to new owners, who used it as a house, but the listing includes shots of a dining room that looks like it’s still set up for a board meeting and a den with black-and-white photos that seem to pay homage to the jazz greats who once visited.
Address: 150 Central Park South #1610
Price: $3,695,000 ($7,144 monthly maintenance)
Photo: Christie’s International Real Estate Group
A painting of a cackling witch (across from a Picasso) sticks out in a listing photo of a co-op on Central Park South. It’s the focal point of what seems to have been a pied-à-terre for Stanley and Muriel Weithorn, collectors who told the Jewish News that they ignored trends and bought based on their “gut reaction.” Stanley, who described himself as a “feisty” tax lawyer, died in 2015, and his obituary helps explain his fun taste: “His tireless advocacy of liberal causes earned him a spot on Richard Nixon’s ‘Enemies List,’ which he considered one of his life’s greatest honors.”
Address: 400 West End Avenue #2B
Price: $2,195,000 ($3,671 monthly maintenance)
Photo: The Corcoran Group
Listing photos show this co-op has as many pianos as it does bedrooms (two), and they seem to have belonged to the legendary Ruth Falcon, a soprano who “appeared in the major houses of Berlin, Paris, Monte Carlo, Prague and Vienna,” then taught other stars. Soprano Deborah Voigt told the New York Times that once she reached a high note, Falcon taught her to have “the faith … to let it spin out, to release the overtones that were there but were being held in by me.”
Address: 335 West 38th Street Unit 34
Price: $7,775,000 ($9,610 monthly maintenance)
A listing photo of a $7.775 million apartment features quote art in the bathroom that reads, in full: “Being wealthy is when there’s time to watch the sun set, when there’s a glimpse of the wind moving across the field. When all that matters is hearing waves and seeing stars, and most of all, when there’s one very good friend.” That might be one of the maxims that hypnotherapist owner Dian Griesel sells the executives she helps to “understand the complexities of conscious, preconscious, and subconscious belief formation.”
Address: 25 East End Avenue 11G–10D
Price: $4,950,000 ($10,832 monthly maintenance)
The Corcoran Group
A four-bedroom in an old-school co-op — the first built on East End Avenue — gets wild in a powder room, with a photo in the listing showing limited-edition wallpaper from the design brand Trove.
