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Question About New York Apartment Prices Today (With A Small Spoiler)

posted 12 years ago by tgibbs279
4 replies | jump to latest

I say "small spoiler" because this isn't important to the plot, but C.C. Baxter says he pays 85 dollars a month for his apartment.
I'd appreciate it if someone reading this, who's from New York City and has seen this movie, could estimate the rent today for that apartment.
Consider the size of the apartment (living room, small but separate kitchen, separate bedroom, and bathroom).
And consider it's in Manhattan.

What would that apartment rent be today?

[–] fortunate1 12 years ago

The filming location guide has the apartment on Columbus Avenue, and that can't be right: it's clearly on a side street. It could be anywhere between 60th & 110th and CPW and Riverside. So, given the variations in that wide of an area (further uptown or further away from the parks will be cheaper; southside of the street more expensive than north), I'd guess a first floor, one bedroom walkup today would start at $2700/mo and run as high as $4200/mo.

[I'm not an agent and I don't live in that neighbourhood; some professionals may chime in that my ranges are off but, if anything, I expect the low end I've quote is too low.]

[–] michaeljcummings 10 years ago

I think you're about right and we're told it's in the west 60s between CPW and Col. I say about $3500. I think it's interesting that the common wisdom for so long was "rent = 25% of salary" for so long (CC made $94 a week at first) - That turned into more like 50% of salary in the late 80s when I began working in NYC!

[–] movieghoul 10 years ago

It's more than inflation at work here. The neighborhood has changferd a lot for the better. This is the nabe where West Side Story was set, so it was hardly gentrified. And pre-Lincoln Center.

[–] truther 10 years ago

The apartment is supposed to be at 51 W 67th street, though the building shown in the movie doesn't actually exist.

The other commenters are right -- the neighborhood has gentrified. Everything's more expensive around there, relatively speaking, than it would have been in 1959. Plus his apartment is an old-fashioned walkup in a building that would have since been renovated. There are still alot of places like that in Manhattan, but very, very few of them are in that particular high-rent neighborhood. It's a little like asking what the "Good Times" apartment in Chicago's Cabrini-Green projects would rent for today; the whole complex has been demolished.

That said, you'd figure a place like that would rent for $3,000 to $4,000 today, give or take.