Let's Go See the "Mystery Writer" Apartment!

We were so intrigued by this Curbed article commenting on the listing of Gary Shteyngart's LES apartment that we decided to pop by the New York Times' bestselling author's 1BR located in the Soviet-esque co-op wonderland on the East River about which we have always been curious.

In addition to Gary's apartment, we ended up seeing several 1BRs in this complex, which is actually a Moscow suburb three separate co-op communities . There is the "East River" Coop (close to...well, you get it folks), the Hillman Coop (which is sliiiightly further west), and the much better located Seward community which is priced higher but is somewhat closer to hipster-filled laundromats the subway. Overall, these coop apartments are all attractively priced (listings currently run at around $621 per sq ft but many are priced lower) albeit the apartments themselves are not particularly attractive. Although we did see a couple of renovated units, most units needed a major overhaul (including some really simple basics like cleaning the windows), new floors and appliance updates.

Still, we couldn't help but be drawn into the Cold War aura of these enormous stark buildings and can imagine how the area (maybe in the winter? maybe with fur?) can make you feel part of the landscape of the charming Russian Debutante's Handbook or the wild ride that is Absurdistan.

As far as Gary's actual 1BR, it's quite well-maintained and spartan (duh) although we did enjoy some well-placed Soviet irony such as the picture in the kitchen of a Communist building exterior and a cosmonaut (what?) candy bar.

We also loved peeking into the reading life of Gary Shteyngart (one entire wall of the living room is taken up by books) and are pleased to note that he loves Absurdistan as much as we do, having approximately 10 copies of just that title on his shelves (see the porntastic, "we're just checking our email and not taking photos on our Blackberry" image above). Unfortunately, we were shooed away by the agent before we could find "R" for Russian Debutante's Handbook, but we know it's there somewhere in every language too.