Photo-Illustration: Curbed; Photos: Douglas Elliman
Listen, it’s not as though getting an apartment in New York has ever been easy. But one could probably argue it has never been harder than it is right now. The most god-awful studios are regularly renting for thousands and thousands of dollars with lines of interested tenants out the door. Here, we’ll find the actually worth-looking-ats, the actually worth-the-costs, and the surprisingly affordable-for-those-parquet-floors from around the internet.
This week brought me from Belgian Gothic seminaries to Victorian mansions, with a few aggressively average $4,700 apartments sprinkled among them to keep us grounded. We’ve got fireplaces, parquet floors continuing to stun, one bathroom positioned alarmingly close to the refrigerator, and a lot of movie references. We stuck mostly around Brooklyn, hitting Clinton Hill, Prospect Heights, Ditmas Park, Bay Ridge, and — because we love a random detour to Manhattan — Gramercy Park. As always, due to the housing crisis, the prices remain detached from reality, but at least the floors are, for the most part, excellent.
$2,900, 1-bedroom: Would I call this Clinton Hill? Sure, in the somewhat broad, spiritually Clinton Hill sense of the term. Cheap with ceramic tub and flashy fun tiling.
$3,750, 1-bedroom: There’s an outdoor terrace, it’s under 4k, and that’s all I have to say about this one.
$3,950, studio: Just because I’m obsessed with this building — a Belgian Gothic seminary built in 1915! The huge arched window in your new studio apartment’s not bad either.
555 Washington Avenue (see also photo above)
Photo: Douglas Elliman
$2,750, studio: Teensy studio with nice and sizable windows and easy access to the fridge from the bathroom. In case you emerge from the tub completely starving.
$3,450, 1-bedroom: Not terrible if you don’t mind overhead track lighting.
$4.750, 2-bedroom: Staggeringly high price for a totally middling apartment.
$4,499, 2-bedroom: Taking a moment of silence to observe the beauty of the brass-finished fireplace with the brass-flecked surrounding tile. The rest of the apartment isn’t moving me as much.
175 Underhill Avenue.
Photo: Corcoran
$12,000, 3-bedroom: In case you have $12,000 and want to live in an Art Deco landmarked building on Eastern Parkway with stunning views of the park?
$12,500, 4-bedroom: In case you have $12,000 and want to live in a gorgeous Victorian mansion that has been tragically a little too updated and suffers from some of the worst wallpaper I’ve seen since Barton Fink.
776 East 17th Street.
Photo: Brown Harris Stevens
$2,260, studio: Apologies for the jump scare back to reality — but this is suitable if you don’t get freaked out by thin, Being John Malkovich–ian hallways.
$15,000, 3-bedroom: I feel like I haven’t loft-lifed in a while, so had to scratch that itch. Nowhere in the realm of affordable, but I like to look at the pictures, so sue me. A lot of original windows and great Rear Window views. Let me know if the movie references start to get annoying.
106 East 19th Street.
Photo: City Connections Realty
$2.600, 1-bedroom: Lovely and affordable home in a beautiful co-op building that’s a little way the heck and gone, as my mother would say.
$4,000, 3-bedroom: Very spacious and essentially waterfront (which is good for a renter, bad for a buyer, I’d say) property in a co-op building with a live-in super. Free views of the Verrazano Bridge.
$3,100, 2-bedroom: Good pricing, great parquets — my kind of coupling.
$2,035, 1-bedroom: Better pricing, better floors, and it’s prewar! Which is the new, winning trifecta.
$2,800, 2-bedroom: Five-room, two-bedroom with good light that’s very 1950s Americana. Highlight for me is, obviously, the turquoise bathroom tile.
131 78th Street.
Photo: Brown Harris Stevens
