The Upper West Side is home to so many grand and gorgeous apartment buildings, including some of the city’s most prestigious addresses. Right up there with Central Park West locales like the Dakota and the San Remo is 2109 Broadway, also known as the legendary Ansonia. Our Rental of the Week is a well-appointed Upper West Side studio perched on the top floor of this iconic structure, offering high glamour for a surprisingly low price.
Address: 2109 Broadway #1719
Price: $2,000
Size: studio
Neighborhood: Upper West Side
Best feature: It’s the Ansonia, darling. This glorious building has a history like no other. Once one of the grandest hotels in Manhattan, it boasted the world’s largest swimming pool, a lobby fountain with live seals, and a rooftop farm/zoo. It holds intense importance for baseball fans, both worshipful (Babe Ruth himself lived there) and notorious (the 1919 World Series scandal was orchestrated there). It’s also a certified LGBTQ landmark, having housed the infamous Continental Baths in its basement back in the 1970s. (Fun fact: Bette Midler got her start performing there. Her accompanist at the time? Barry Manilow.) And you may recognize the building from a multitude of movies and TV shows.
As for the apartment itself, this top-floor studio is bright and airy thanks to nine-foot ceilings and huge south-facing windows. An elegant decorative fireplace gives it prewar pizzazz. The kitchen and bathroom are both surprisingly spacious, with a dishwasher and plenty of storage space. And the building, obviously, offers white-glove service, with a doorman, concierge, and huge staff.
Why it’s a deal: The median asking rent for an Upper West Side apartment is $2,975, according to StreetEasy’s Data Dashboard. That puts this Upper West Side studio at nearly $1,000 below average for the area.
Manhattan Rentals Under $2,500 on StreetEasy Article continues below
Biggest drawback: Despite the Ansonia’s cache, this Upper West Side studio is still a studio — it’s pretty small. And there’s no floor plan on the listing, so it’s hard to say what kind of closet space it offers.
See the listing: 2109 Broadway #1719, on the Upper West Side. Listed by Sara Schwartz at Corcoran.
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