Wednesday, February 10, 2016

These charming East 6th Street studios still have the bathtub in the living space

An EVG reader on the hunt for a studio apartment shared this listing with us... for an apartment at 328 E. Sixth St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue... particularly notable was that the renovated studio kept its tenement roots with a claw foot bathtub in the living area/kitchen...





Here's the listing via MNS:

This East Village 1 bedroom/ Studio + office, offers a generous space and lots of light on a charming tree lined east village block, on the 4th floor of a well kept walk up building, this is the best deal for the dollar in this hood. The apartment has a Beautiful claw foot tub in the living space.



The monthly rent: $1,800.

Oh, and the ad mentions studio + office. Maybe it's in here...



And it turns out there's another studio apartment in the same building where the tub also sits in the kitchen... for $1,900 you can rent unit #12...





...which included another detail from decades past — a so-called "tuberculosis window" ...



Head to the Streeteasy blog for more on these units.

Photos via MNS

29 comments:

Anonymous said...

Old School!

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry but there is no excuse to rent one of these apartments or to live in the EV unless you absolutely need to for school or work. If I wasn't in my present living situation I would be moving 140 blocks north where it still looks like NYC.

Anonymous said...

Oh Bologna

Anonymous said...

I actually think these are both very pretty. It's nice to see that someone is trying to retain part of a space's original charm and not just gut reno the whole thing, "upgrading" with the ubiquitous stainless steel fixtures and cheap stand-up shower. Also, $1800 is not bad at all considering that's what I'm paying for my rent stabilized place, wah wah. Also-also, today I learned I have a tuberculosis window! I can't wait to get home and tell the cats.

But yeah, I'm moving uptown, too, as soon as the buyouts come :D

Nemo said...

Oh my God! The top listing is MY apartment! Just vacated after 35 years. I moved in in 1981 and the rent was $210. When I gave up the lease last month the rent was $711. I'm glad they kept the fixtures. In the rest of the apartments building they wiped them clean over the years. So weird seeing these 'public' pics: I feel like a ghost revisiting the scenes of my life a century later. The EV has changed so much, it became unbearable to me. And unbearable expensive, obviously: $1,800? R.I.P. & Adios.

Anonymous said...

that top one is a beauty! wish it was still $711 a month. sorry you had to leave it Nemo!:(

Anonymous said...

...whoever rents it at $1800 might consider checking in with the city about the 711/1800 gap. A paint job doesn't seem like much in the way of renovations!

Anonymous said...

Nemo, did they actually do any renovations beyond a new coat of paint?

I sure hope the new tenant checks the rent records with the city...it doesn't look particularly renovated to me. For that big an increase (the new rent is 153% more) I think there'd have to have actually be renovations.

Anonymous said...

Ok, yeah, the price is stupid. But this is the kind of apartment I always dreamed of living in when I moved here 20 years ago.

Ms. said...

Epitaph:
Once upon a time in New York City was a rooftop apartment where poets and other luminaries did dwell, plus a fire escape garden of many plants, and, such conversations of depth and breadth and sheer delight you can't possibly imagine, and days and nights of love and grief, of human struggle, of health and illness, of wine and song, of care and carousing, and no body ever much minded the spices of India smell. It was swell, there were words of wonder, curses and caresses, decades of history, walls with paintings and books to take you around the world. White washed clean, it's hard to see, impossible to tell, impossible to tell. There are so many ghosts in the plaster, and ghosts in the boards, and if you live there they won't be yours.

Anonymous said...

"Includes a kitchen made for Seamless!"

Anonymous said...

Wow... I lived for years in a 6th-floor walk-up in the EV with a claw-foot tub in the kitchen-- many moons ago. Paid $250 a month for a 1-bedroom with a view of T Sq Park.

There was no TB window, but my toilet was out in the hall, if you can believe it. Had to use a padlock on it to keep the junkies out. Kind of a bitch if I wanted to pee in the middle of the night though.

No need to visit the Tenement Museum. I was living in the 19th century at home!

Cheers to Nemo. I knew you from the poetry scene and have bought some of your exotic trinkets from your travels. Hope you got a nice pay-off, brother.

Moira

Gojira said...

Ms., your epitaph is poignant, exquisite, heartbreaking, and oh so very, very true. Thank you for sharing it.

But how I wish you had not had to write it.

Anonymous said...

PEOPLE WOULD DIE for an $1800 EV APT! not sure who you guys are.. but My East 6th st building w apts of same size go for 3000

Anonymous said...

Yeah, that black and white one is gorgeous. And super easy to finish off that kitchen with just any kind of island.

Anonymous said...

i want either one of the apts. i love the old school new york sity style!

Mike Diaz said...

Yup. I still live in this kind of apartment and trust me-if my rent wasn't so cheap, I'd bug out too. The EV just isn't interesting anymore. While the tub in the kitchen is quaint and cute, 30 years down the line it ain't so quaint. My toilet is also in the hall and up until 6 years ago I had one of those tanks that you had to pull the chain, like where Michael Corleone hid the fun in the GODFATHER. Some of the things you people have written here are EXCELLENT! Beautifully written and conceived. Your words are what it used to be like living here. Bittersweet now and I long for the creative atmosphere that was always the reason anyone lived here at all.

Anonymous said...

A friend of mine in the early 80's had a tub in the kitchen and the (shared) toilet was in the closet in the hallway. At least these places seem to have their own toilets(?). My first apartment in 1981 was a railroad with 2 TB windows, an eat in kitchen and a tub and toilet crammed into a small windowless sliver or the kitchen. Seldom heat of hot water and occasionally no water at all. I recall scraping frost from the freezer to melt on the stove to wash up somedays. The apartment ran the entire length of the building, half a floor. Rent was $230 which I shared with a roommate. It was rough but of course exciting (I was 23) my food budget was $10 per week.

Atomic Man said...

So, you gotta carry your dirty dishes over to that dinky little sink next to the tub?

Jill said...

An excuse to trot out this photo with an update 25 years later. http://mingum.blogspot.com/2016/02/1990-2015.html

Scuba Diva said...

A toilet in the hallway is against code, so there are no apartments on the market that don't have their own bathroom—unless it's a rooming house—or, for instance, the Pioneer hotel down on the Bowery, which was a flophouse and has turned into a tourist hotel, also had shared WCs [water closets] in the hall.

A friend of mine on Rivington lives in a pre-law tenement and still has the bathtub in the kitchen and the toilet in the hall; we have a bathtub in the kitchen as well, since my roommate has been living here since 1976. Boy, am I glad to have this layout; the woman three floors down from us has a renovated version of what we have, and the kitchen has been squashed in order to make the bedroom next to it larger, as well as accommodate a full bathroom in place of the water closet. That also means they've made her kitchen window smaller, and since the light comes from the north, the room is dark most of the year. At least we're on the top floor, and get as much light as you can from this arrangement. In spring, we'll have more sunlight, and a prism in one of my roommate's windows will throw rainbows on the walls for a few months.

In 1983, I moved into a railroad flat I referred to as my "Fritz the Cat" apartment on St. Mark's place, although there wan't even a bathtub; because the apartment had never had a bathtub, a shower stall had been put in the kitchen.

Anonymous said...

No fucking way I'd pay for this shithole. Everyone is entitled to a bathroom. This must be a joke. What if your have guests? They have to witness you bathe or do a number 2? No thank you.

Anonymous said...

In 1988 I lived on Ave B near 12th. It was a "fresh renovation" (and one of the only inhabited buildings at the time that was a crack den.
The renovation consisted of adding an extra wall, so what was the hallway toilet was now in my bedroom. I actually put my futon in it an slept there.

Anonymous said...

A bathtub in the kitchen loses it's "charm" pretty quickly when it's the middle of winter, you have to wash your hair in the tub or the only sink, or if you have a roommate or visitors. I had a shower in the kitchen on Ludlow St in the 80's, the toilet was in what probably was the closet. Much less attractive, but it solved the hair washing problem. The apt next door had the sink and toilet in the shower stall.

I had friends who had toilets in the hallway, and I'll bet there are a few of those still left, no doubt also described as charming. Great when you have to go into the public hallway to use the toilet at 3 a.m.

I still can't believe how people are being hustled into paying outrageous rents for 5th floor walk-ups and no real bathroom because they have to be in what they think is the cool neighborhood. Please just stay out of the boroughs, they're really "uncool" and those of us who have already had to leave the east village can't afford to keep moving.

Cosmo said...

I live a block away in a similar apartment, but these look a lot nicer than mine. Replace the tub with a shower and that's my setup. It works fine for one person, but sharing demands more creativity and planning. The place is too small for visitors, so that's never been a problem. Rent is not cheap, but it's still a lot less than what's going these days, which is depressing. After so many years, you just learn to live without a lot of things.

Glenn said...

Doesn't say anywhere that the bathrooms are in the hallway. $1800 is very cheap by today's standards and the place looks great. I'm shocked.

Anonymous said...

they should pay me to live there

D. Moe said...

I live in the building next door and I don't have any kind of bathtub.
And the new building owners just jacked up the rent even higher than this.

blue glass said...

in the very early 60s i looked for an "affordable" apartment with a real bathroom - took over a year to find it - an apartment on east 13th street for under $100 a month. terrible block, wonderful apartment.
my future husband had an apartment on st marks place with the toilet in the hall. big problem in the middle of the might. not so much for the guys. they used the sink at night.
almost everyone i knew down here had a toilet in the hall or in a tiny space next to the hall, with the tub remaining in the kitchen.
ah, the good old days!