The Price of Looking Like a Million Bucks

by Yvonne Vávra

“You look like a million bucks,” I overheard a woman exclaim as she spotted her friend outside Da Capo on 75th and Columbus. The friend was wearing high-waisted denim bell-bottoms, a fitted orange blouse, just sheer enough, and a pillbox hat with a tiny veil grazing her forehead. She did look like a million bucks. In fact, you couldn’t put a price on the kind of eye candy she was serving.

But give your eyes an inch and they’ll take a mile. They’re only human. So, once awakened, mine started wandering, hungry for more. Sure enough, all four corner buildings at the intersection looked stunning. Pappardella’s cozy terrace was all vacation vibes, the twin towers of the San Remo peeked out from Central Park West, and right next to me, behind Parla’s big windows, was another irresistible vista: a perfect pizza. As if there were any other kind. The whole corner looked like a million bucks. The whole neighborhood does.

And our apartments are priced accordingly.

Just last week, the Upper West Side luxury real estate market had an especially busy run, with several multimillion-dollar apartments changing hands. One of them sold for $35,500,000 in a 70-story building at 50 West 66th Street. If you prefer to stay in the five-figure realm, you can always rent: a three-bedroom for $29,500 or, if you insist on a fourth, $89,500 on the 50th floor. It comes with a private loggia with views of, well, everything, and the daily challenge of deciding between squash, golf, bowling, pickleball, or a swim. It’s all right there. No outside world needed.

Maddeningly, it’s $87,000 over the absolute irresponsible maximum I could possibly stretch to for rent. Good thing we have options. Hey Streeteasy, what’s the Upper West Side offering us down here? With a maximum rent set to $2,000, the search returns: nothing. Zip, zilch, nada, zero. From 59th to 110th.

But adjust the max to $2,500, and now there’s one option. When I started writing, there were even two. But the ground-floor $2,475 listing on 83rd Street, featuring masterful wide-angle photography, was off the market before I could finish this column.

The remaining $2,200 option on 100th Street could make for a cozy home, but you’ll have to abandon your cartwheel ambitions. From the looks of it, you might be able to touch both walls at the same time, which could be fun! And you’re always close to your snacks, no matter where you stand. Think of it as an excellent opportunity to achieve greatness in the absence of distractions. Erik Satie composed his Pièces froides in a tiny, not-even-10-by-10-foot Paris apartment he called the “cupboard.” Who needs space to do a cartwheel? Don’t be ridiculous.

When I first got to New York and, fresh off the plane, went on my first apartment hunt, the most affordable listing I found on Craigslist was one for $800. You had to access it by going down a staircase from street level. I was absolutely flabbergasted. $800?! How could anyone afford this? That was before I learned that this was the weekly price.

My mind, you see, was still calibrated to German prices. My last apartment in Berlin was a studio on a top floor, with a terrace overlooking the cool part of town. I paid what amounts to about $400. You can imagine what New York rent prices did to my brain.

But I’m proud to report that, like all humans, I’m capable of adjusting and have developed a new normal. A shiny, absurd, and obscene new normal. If I ever went back to Berlin, I’d rent a castle. Easy for me to say, of course, because never ever would I leave New York. Save yourselves, I’m too far gone. I’ll go down with this city if I must.

With any luck, we won’t live for a hundred years more. Because if the price development of the last 100 years is any indication, we’ll be paying six figures in rent and won’t get a pickleball court for it. In 1938, you could rent a one-bedroom in the Master Building on Riverside Drive and 103rd Street for $50. As per a New York Times ad, it came with a silent refrigerator and free lectures and recitals for residents. The Master doesn’t have any one-bedrooms available at the moment, but they do have a studio. For $3,000, it can be yours. I know. But it’s on the 9th floor, so the view might just be worth a million bucks.

——

Before you go: As I’m putting the final touches on this column, the $2,200 studio on 100th Street has been snatched up. Someone else will get to touch those walls. But there’s good news: the $2,475 ground-floor gem on 83rd Street has, in a surprising twist, made it back onto the market. What a time to be alive.

Yvonne Vávra is a magazine writer and author of the German book 111 Gründe New York zu lieben (111 Reasons to Love New York). Born a Berliner but an aspiring Upper West Sider since the 1990s (thanks, Nora Ephron), she came to New York in 2010 and seven years later made her Upper West Side dreams come true. She’s been obsessively walking the neighborhood ever since.

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