What a rude question!
Season 3 of the hit Amazon show The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel became available a few days ago. One of the themes — and this isn’t really a spoiler — is real estate and how damn expensive it can be.
Streeteasy took a closer look at the unit where Midge Maisel’s parents live. It’s at the Strathmore, a real building on 113th and Riverside Drive.
In fact, viewers even get to see the apartment’s gorgeous Hudson River view in this season. To recreate the “classic 6” that the family lives in, Streeteasy looked at sales of two adjacent apartments in the building (some readers point out that this apartment appears to be quite a bit larger than a classic 6). And here’s what they came to:
We took a look at the real building and found two units, #12CD and #12N, that could be combined to make a home comparable to what Midge and her family have on the show. In 2017, these units sold for a combined $8,850,000. So if “The Marvelous Mrs Maisel” were to take place today, Midge’s family would have a place worth just shy of $9 million.
But how much would the home have been worth back in 1959? Based on data from the U.S. Census and the S&P Case Shiller Home Price Index, StreetEasy estimates that Midge Maisel’s apartment would have been worth approximately $462,000 in 1959.
Except for the fact that Abe is a Columbia University professor, and it was mentioned in the show that if Abe left Columbia, they would lose their apartment. So I think they rent the apartment from Columbia, albeit very cheaply (or maybe the rent is included as part of his compensation package).
Columbia professors don’t get apartment “deals”. Everything is pretty much market rate.
Not correct. Desired professors get housing subsidies or specific subsidized apartments. This is fairly routine at Columbia and other schools and common knowledge.
My mom rented a 4 bedroom apartment from Columbia down the street from St. John when she worked there in the 70’s. The apartment itself doesn’t exist anymore because they eventually split it into two separate apartments due to its size.
To this day, Columbia University will give professors housing stipends (you can negotiate all kinds of perks with a Professorship at Columbia, including the amount of rent) and runs a real estate management office for all the many residential units they own.
462K in 1959 dollars (which would be a lot of money), or current dollars (where it is a lot less)? That is, inflation adjusted?
In season one Abe bought a not dissimilar apartment for Midge and Joel, so somehow they had the cash for that, even if Columbia is subsidizing his current unit.
No. Joel’s father owned that apartment and Abe supposedly went in for half. But given season 3 i don’t know if that ever really happened.
Abe didn’t buy the apartment it was Joel’s dad and that’s why he kicks them out
Nope. Classic 6 is a 2 bedroom apartment with a kitchen, living room, dining room and maid’s room. Six rooms total, not six bedrooms.
I thought a classic 6 was indeed 6 rooms? 12N alone looks close to the layout depicted in the show. Either way, they are definitely not in a classic 6!
Just 12n – that’s a nearly perfect comp to the apartment in the show
In the late 50s and early 60s when buildings first began to go coop. a 6 room in that location would not be anywhere near 400,000. More like 40,000 at most, probably less
True, especially for UWS.
Late Phyllis Newman and Adolph Green bought their apartment at Beresford on CPW for about $40k in early 1960’s.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/22/realestate/a-theatrical-duplex-at-the-beresford-is-listed-for-24-million.html
Mind you $40k was a lot of money for that time. An entire house with land out in one of the outer boroughs or suburbs could cost half that amount, but people still needed a mortgage.
Correct
True. Also, buyers had to buy in cash because banks weren’t keen on giving mortgages to UWS co-ops.
Absolutely correct- under 10k if you were already renting! I still live there 63 years later!
middle class and working class families used to be able to rent “classic 6s” on the UWS, even through the early 80s. who says those were the bad old days?
I believe the character Abe Weissman counted off 5 bedrooms–that is not a classic 6. His dialogue included a line like “When did I become a man who needed 5 bedrooms?”
A classic six is a prewar apartment with a six rooms, generally including the kitchen and bedrooms, and excluding the bathrooms, pantries and entrance galleries.
As designed these apartments had two bedrooms, plus a maid’s bedroom/servant’s quarters (usually off the kitchen/far away from family). A Classic Seven adds one more bedroom.
Fast forward to modern times with homes either doing without servants, or they live out (a daily) many families have turned the maid’s bedroom (or bed rooms) into anything from offices to bedrooms.
Teenagers in particular love those bedrooms off kitchens because of privacy afforded. That plus the (usual) separate service entrance means they can come and go as wish without using main door.
In many other grand pre-war apartments dining rooms, and other spaces either surplus to requirements were often pressed into bedrooms. This became more so as once grand pre-war buildings once built for the wealthy moved down to decidedly middle class demographics.
Hi Sally! Happy Holidays!
True but that doesn’t make sense because they have Midge sleeping in the “Maid’s room” off the kitchen Altho she doesn’t seem To have the mini bathroom that accompanies those rooms.
She wouldn’t need to be in that room if they had 5 bedrooms. I
Lest we forget it’s a TV show.
I have a classic 6 and it is not 6 bedrooms nor would it be anywhere near 9 million dollars today. It is 2 bedrooms, living room, dining room, Kitchen and maids room. Doesn’t Midge live in the maid’s room now or at some point I recall that? If there were 6 bedrooms she’d be in one of the spares.
12N IS the same layout as Abe and Rose Weissman’s apartment. Not sure why the author of the article thinks it needs to be combined with #12CD. Also, it’s not enough to simply adjust for inflation. Real estate prices in NYC have skyrocketed much more than inflation in the past couple decades. That apartment would be expensive in the 1960s but not private-jet, offshore-accounts-in-the-Caymans expensive like it is now.
12N IS the same layout as Abe and Rose Weissman’s apartment. Not sure why the author of the article thinks it needs to be combined with #12CD. Also, it’s not enough to simply adjust for inflation. Real estate prices in NYC have skyrocketed much more than inflation in the past couple decades. That apartment would be expensive but not private-jet, offshore accounts in the Caymans expensive like it is now.
I live a block away from the Maisel building. It is recovering from a major accident which took place 2 1/2 years ago. The huge cornice fell down in a windstorm, and, even though it fell onto the island next to Riverside Park, luckily, no one was hurt or killed. Some friends looked at an apartment in the late 70’s or early 80’s which was considerably larger than a classic 6 and was priced at $450,000. Before the cornice incident, a very large apartment was on the market for $25,000,000. No idea what the selling price was, but doubt it was anywhere near that.
It didn’t become a coop until 1967. Although Mrs Maisel is fiction, in realty Columbia didn’t own the apartment or Joel’s father at the time since it was a rental building prior to 1967. Most likely it was a rent regulated apartment since the building was built prior to 1947.
If you’re a desirable Columbia professor you can get a very generous housing stipend. We have friends who are both tenured faculty at the school. They rent directly from Columbia and for a Classic 6 (approx 1500 sq ft) they pay about $2,000 a month.
I disagree with the $462,000 1959 price estimate. Considering that 30 years ago a high floor 9 room in the Beresford on Central Park West with south park views was purchased for about $450,000. My guess is that the Maisel apartment would have had a price of approximately $35,000-$50,009
Apt 12N looks very close to the apt on the show, with the exception of the 12N bedroom that Miriam stays in not being directly off the kitchen. The 5 bedrooms are taken up by 1. Miriam, 2. Abe and Rose, 3. Ethan and Esther, 4. Miriam’s dresses, and 5. Abe’s study.
12N also appears to have views out over the river. I would agree the Maisel appt has a layout the same as 12N but no river views. The author says the Maisel appt would be worth 9mm, totally unrealistic since 12N with river views is asking 6mm. Maybe the Maisel appt would be worth 4.5mm, after all, its a buyer’s mkt. 9mm is laughably optimistic and ridiculous.