Celebrity Renters
So who’s the "Rich & Renting" celebrity near you?
At one time or another, it’s fairly safe to say that this young actress or that young painter lived in an apartment.
In fact—when you come to think about it—practically everybody, famous or not, has once lived in an apartment of some sort. In a metropolitan setting, at least.
According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, the word "apartment" (from the Italian appartamento) dates back to 1641 and the word "tenement" dates back even further, to the 14th century. In this country, of course, big city apartment living has become a fact of life.
And when one talks about "big city apartment living"—especially celebrity "big city apartment living"—well, you just have to be talking about New York City. Sorry, but it’s where the artists exhibit, where the plays show, where most magazines and books publish. Accordingly, it’s where we go, at least once, to seek our fame and fortune. And, as long as we’re there, we live in a New York apartment.
You know the tale: The fabled "five floor walk-up coldwater flat" with the bathtub in the kitchen and cockroaches in the hallway. Bang on the radiator so the super’ll turn on the heat (don’t hold your breath, though). Small, cramped rooms and noisy neighbors and the place’s a mess, I just don’t have the time, cattle call’s in twenty minutes¾
Manhattan, baby, cuz if you c’n make it here you’ll make it anywhere.
Can we name names? How ’bout James Cagney? Born there, on Avenue D when the Lower East Side was still the first (and sometimes only) stop for immigrants fresh off the boat.
The Lower East Side, a not-large neighborhood - and incidentally once this writer’s stamping grounds - is practically a snapshot of America itself. It was once home to freed slaves (1820’s), Irish fleeing the potato famine (1850’s), Germans, Southern Italians, Poles, Ukrainians and, most famously, the Jews. (Cagney, in fact, was one of the few Irishmen who could speak Yiddish.) Now it ground-zero for post-punks and hepcat wannabe’s.
And that’s just one ’hood. There are also the Villages (East, West and Greenwich), Hell’s Kitchen (now "Clinton"), Harlem, Spanish Harlem, Washington Heights…and we’re still not off the island yet.
All you apartment hunters out there, bask in your company. From Cagney to de Niro (both Robert and father, Robert Sr.), Jackson Pollack to Andy Warhol, the New York Dolls to the Ramones¾
when they were there, they probably lived in an apartment.
So, guess what? You’re in great company¾
enjoy!
—Our writer is David J. Sharp
