what is going on with this apt?

The apartment and its flaws have been discussed at length here:
http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/3732-where-is-my-3br2ba-for-1-to-1249-million-on-the-uws

Poster ccdevi nailed the funky aspects of the layout.

Lense is a pretty sharp agent, and I doubt he ever thought he would get anything like $2.4MM. But I doubt he expected to cut the price by 34% either.

I'm interested in this apartment too. I hadn't focused on the bathroom situation until ccdevi pointed it out - definitely an issue.

As for price, maybe a motivated seller has something to do with it as well?

That is one of the most unworkable layouts I have ever seen. Practically every wall would have to come down to reconfigure this place 1/2 decently. And even then I don't know if it could work. Was this apartment originally laid out this way? Was the building chopped up in the past leaving strange locations for plumbing or something? Eesh.