Imaginary Little Old Latvian Lady Who Owned the Perfect Manhattan Apartment
in Douglas Kennedy’s “The Pursuit of Happiness” (2001)
When the payment came through a month later, I put it in the bank and went shopping. For an apartment. It only took a week to find what I was looking for: a sunny one-bedroom place on the first floor of a turn-of-the-century brownstone on West 77th Street off Riverside Drive. The apartment was spacious, with three bright rooms, high ceilings, hardwood floors. There was a small alcove area off the living room which would make a perfect study. But the best selling point — the thing that made me want the place immediately — was the fact that it had its own private garden. All right, it was only a ten by ten patch of cracked paving stones and dead grass — but I knew I could do wonderful things with it. More tellingly, I would have my own private garden in the center of Manhattan — a little dash of green in the middle of all that high-rise concrete and brick. True, the walls of the apartment were covered in heavy brown floral wallpaper. And yes, the kitchen was a little old-fashioned — it had an antiquated ice box that actually required regular deliveries from the local ice man. But the real estate broker said that she’d be willing to shave $300 off the asking price of $8,000 to compensate for the renovations I would need to make. I told her to add another $200 to that figure, and we’d have a deal. She agreed. As it was a brownstone, I didn’t have to be vetted by the board of the cooperative. There was just a monthly maintenance fee of twenty dollars. I used Joel Eberts again to handle the legal work. I paid cash. I owned the apartment a week after I saw it.
“My sister the property owner,” Eric said archly while looking around the apartment only a few days before I closed the deal.
“Next thing I know, you’ll be calling me a bourgeois capitalist.”
“I’m not being ideological — just wry. There is a different, you know.”
“Really? I never realized that, comrade.”
“Shhh…”
“Stop being paranoid. I doubt Mr. Hoover’s bugged this apartment. I mean, the previous owner was a little old Latvian lady…”
