‘The Apartment’ Brings Back Memories

Last Sunday I watched the classic 1960 Billy Wilder film, “The Apartment,” starring Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLain and Fred MacMurray. It came out the year after Billy Wilder’s hit, “Some Like it Hot,” again starring Lemmon as well as Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis.

Lemmon’s character C.C.Baxter has an apartment on Manhattan’s upper west side and is talked into letting four of his male co-workers use it for their extra-marital liaisons.

The focus of the film on apartments in New York City got me thinking about the various apartments I lived in when I was pursuing my acting dream in the big apple.

My first apartment came about after meeting my first friend in New York City, Cindy Dutton on West 57th Street in Manhattan. I don’t remember why, but we struck up a conversation about neighborhoods and where we lived and I brought up the fact I had just arrived in NYC and had no place to stay. She invited me to stay with her and her sister, Stacey. I basically lived with them rent free. It was there I found my first job, also through Cindy, at Amy’s Pub where she bartended on 8th Avenue and 46th Street. It was in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen and I found an apartment of my own on the corner of 8th Avenue and 48th Street.

It took me six months to find my own place and it was a pitiful walk-up somewhat similar to the one in the movie where Jack Lemmon’s character was supposed to live. The apartment was much more expensive in the 1980s than the supposed $85 a month Lemmon’s character paid for his in 1959, and I had to share it with a roommate to make the payments. I can’t seem to remember the name of that first roommate and I stayed there only about eight months.

My next apartment was at 2nd Avenue and 10th Street, actually on 10th at 2nd Avenue and I distinctly remember my roommate there was named Lisa Marcus and I stayed there about a year. It was slightly better than my first apartment, but still a walk-up.

I also lived on 92nd Street and Second Avenue, which was on the upper east side, which wasn’t really my cup of tea because I liked lower Manhattan. Lower Manhattan was funkier and more artist oriented.

It was about this time I was working at Columbus Restaurant at Columbus Avenue and 74th Street, just a stone’s throw away from Central Park. I had a boyfriend at the time named Tim and we lived at an apartment on 76th Street and Amsterdam Avenue That was walking distance from my job, so that worked out well. But alas, Tim turned out to be an alcoholic and he loved drinking more than anything.

I waited on building owner Michael Grabow, who was a regular customer at Columbus. He always sat in my section along with his wife and he offered me first shot at a beautiful apartment in the West Village at 72 Barrow Street which had a complete courtyard and ivy growing up the building with French windows. I jumped at it and I felt like I had arrived. I was there about two years until I moved to California.

This was my last apartment before I moved to L.A., but that’s another story.