It’s a steal: woman paid US$28.43 rent for Manhattan apartment
The deal is now history after the woman’s recent death. Her lifelong home will be renovated and rented out for many thousand times more
In a city where rents have gone through the roof, one tenant held on to a real steal: US$28.43 a month for a Manhattan apartment.
The New York Post reported that was what Patricia O’Grady paid for the Greenwich Village walk-up where she moved in 1955. She stayed until she died recently at 84.
O’Grady lived there with three other aspiring actresses who swept the hallway in exchange for their US$16 rent.
There was no furniture, no sink, no bath, and no hot water or heat. But they had two fireplaces and a stove. They also installed a sink and basic furnishings.
The other women moved out long ago, but that’s pretty much how it stayed till March when O’Grady died after she was hit by a car near the apartment on Sixth Avenue.
By then, her rent had gone up by a dozen dollars in more than six decades. She refused offers for improvements from the building’s owner, Adam Pomerantz, who runs his Murray’s Bagels at street level.
O’Grady was adamant about any changes in her home, saying, “Please leave the apartment as is,” according to Pomerantz.