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I didn't know what to do. I wanted to stay at the Chelsea. But because she
hadsomeinfluencethere,shewasabletofinagleitwithStanleyBardthatmaybe
we could look at some other apartments elsewhere in the building and make a
parallel move. Wewere pretty friendly with the staffthere. Weknewthe bellman
named Timur.
Timursaidtome,“Youknow,themostbeautifulapartmentis622.It'saroom
thattheyreserveforphotoshoots.”It'sthisbeautifulperiodroomwithabackbay
window.
I thought, “Wow, this is interesting!”
So I went to talk to Stanley. He said, “Yeah, yeah, let me try to find you
something else.”
He starts showing me these awful, awful apartments. At the time the
Chelsea's rooms that he might convert to rentals were terrible. They had these
horrible stucco walls and wall-to-wall carpeting. Tourists who go stay at the
Chelsea are often disappointed because of these horrible rooms. Stanley was
showing me these dark rooms with no character.
I said, “What about 622?”
He rolled his eyes and thought about it. He agreed to show it to us. Unlike
these other rooms, 622 had the original wood floor, the fireplace with all the ori-
ginaltile.TheChelsea wasbuiltasco-opapartments, andthisroomhadbeenthe
parlor room of a larger apartment, so it had this kind of yoke between two rooms
thatyoucouldhangavelvetcurtainfrominVictoriantimes.Ononeend,ithada
baywindowlookingsouth.Ontheotherend,ithadafull-length,floor-to-ceiling,
framed mirror, so the light came into the room in this beautiful way and filled it
up in a corridor of light. Even though it was a one-room apartment, and the kit-
chen had been carved out of a closet space, it had a beautiful generosity of scale.
If you look at the map of the rooms on the landings that shows the fire exits,
it shows the configurations of the rooms, you see that 622 is the largest single
room on any given floor.
Stanley begrudgingly said we could have it. It was a triumph for us because
we'd been admitted to the inner sanctum and had this beautiful, beautiful apart-
ment that was protected, secluded, and very special. I could have stayed there
forever, but we had children. I subsequently traded a painting for a slight reduc-
tion in rent. It was my understanding that if I had stayed in 622, the rent would
stay the same into perpetuity. So it was a tough thing to give up.
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