I saw this listing for an Imperial House Co-op where Liza lives, and formerly the home of Joan Crawford.

Miss Crawford would never furnish her apartment is such a gauche manner.

Um, R1, uh...

R2, those pics are tasteful.

Put a window where it OUGHT to be. I'm making this YOUR showplace, Al.

Can i get a $1500 credit from the seller to pay for the removal of Pepsi stains?

"those pics are tasteful."

I'd bet good money she placed those pictures on wire hangers.

Those floors suggest that she didn't reserve "Code Brown" for dirt only.

Joan was an early collector of Ikea.

Does it have a breakfast nook?

[quote] Pets permitted but pied-a-terres are not.

Well!

I about barfed viewing the offering but I'll get the super to come clean it up.

[quote]...but pied-a-terres are not

Never understood why some NY co-ops don't want pied-a-terres. Isn't that the perfect neighbor - one who is hardly living there? As long as they're not renting it out, whats the problem?

How very sad and depressing that shoddy apartments with shitty floors, windows, walls, with low ceilings and hideous and small kitchens, are sold at that price. What went wrong?

[quote]What went wrong?

You don't know what happened to property prices in NYC? This is discussed a lot on DL.

I agree. It's a shitty apartment.

Joan Crawford must have been pretty short on cash in her latter years.

[quote]Pets permitted but pied-a-terres are not.

That's "pieds-à-terre."

Have you ever stubbed your toe on a parquet floor? Hurts like nothing else.

That's an especially nasty looking parquet.

Alzheimer's thread

[quote]Alzheimer's thread

& a jolly interesting one at that.

Why did Joan have pictures of black children on her living room wall? Was it to taunt Christina?

Why did she have stacks of cushions on the floor? Were they for impromptu orgies?

Stacked cushions were the stacked books of the '60s.

And yes, they were for orgies.

I can't believe THAT went for 2.5 mil.

Joan's apt seems to have been totally cleared of any personal effects.

It looks like it's been prepared for the furnished rental market.

Met her near the end of her life. She came to my friend's parents apartment for a cocktail party. She was overdressed in a blue beaded gown, very 60s with a white mink jacket. Very stiff and laughed too loudly in an attempt to make sure that you were focused on her. The jewelry looked fake as there were very rich people there wearing real stuff. Probably a wig and heavy false eyelashes. Looked like a fairly good transvestite.

Did you take this picture, R24?

[quote] Joan Crawford must have been pretty short on cash in her latter years.

We managed

[quote]Joan's apt seems to have been totally cleared of any personal effects.

This might have been a privacy policy. You know how nosey people can be. I'm sure we'd all love to inspect family photos etc...

But it is absurdly empty for someone who lives there full time.

I'm glad she had at least paid up and got herself Touch Tone.

I always heard she had pure white carpets and she made people take off their shoes before entering. God, I hate parquet floors. I had two NY apartments with them. In one. the floor was old and dried out and the individual little pieces of wood would pop out.

[quote] God, I hate parquet floors.

Especially in the apartment above.

I suspect this tasteful friends thread is only a ruse for the super-elder gays to have yet another Joan Crawford discussion. Have fun gentlemen.

That's the same building, but that wasn't Joan's old apartment. She had more rooms.

And yes, $2.5 mil for that two-bedroom is ridiculous. NY is nuts now.

Nevertheless it is Crawford's apt that is linked @ R2 and since being discussed. Coincidence, I don't think so R31. Old men should not be so coy.

"Imperial House" of crappy parquet, shitty windows, thin walls and no charm.

The bronze bust of Joan in her apartment was used in the movie STRAIT-JACKET.

[quote] The bronze bust of Joan in her apartment was used in the movie STRAIT-JACKET.

Is there a costume of Trog laying around?

Where does it say that that's Crawford's apt.?

Can you read R36? That ugly ass apartment was Crawford's last home. Maybe you have seen Mommie Dearest too many times and are crushed by her real life melamine dining room?

...she was crushed when she saw the published article. "They didn't put in any pictures of my books, my friends!" she despaired. "You'd think I didn't have any library at all; doesn't that bother you, Carl? And my porcelains! Not one photograph!" She was proud of her white Kuan-Yin porcelains, which she'd collected over the years, and had made sure that they were included in some of the photographs. She was upset that the only full-page picture was a close-up of Michaele Vollbracht's portrait of her, which actually hid behind a tree in the bedroom, and that they had singled out a picture of the Salamunich bronze bust of her which was, I knew, barely visible behind some greenery in the living room. What bothered her was that the inclusion of these self-images made the apartment look like an ego-trip, and it was not.

"Anyway," she finally admitted to me, "it looks like I live in some nouveau-riche efficiency apartment in Queens, or some goddam place and I feel like throwing everything out and starting over!" She was near tears. "I can just hear what those people in California are going to say when they see it: 'Jesus Christ, is that the way she has to live now?'"...

In fact, no one could accuse Joan Crawford of having superb decorating taste, but it is also true that the apartment was much more comfortable and welcoming than the pictures indicated. Yes, she did put plastic covers on the overstuffed furniture, but not all the time, and no, you did not have to remove your shoes to protect the white carpeting, because she'd done away with all that years ago and preferred polished parquet. The furniture, a mix of sleek Parsons tables, vaguely Oriental knickknacks and occasional pieces, with large dollops of "Hollywood Moderne," would horrify Bloomingdale's generation, but I always thought that it suited her. Joan Crawford was Hollywood Moderne. Both of the apartments she lived in on Sixty-ninth Street were bright and airy, and I always felt comfortable in them. The paintings wouldn't win any awards, either, whether they were garishly colored Jamaican primitives, or those bug-eyed portraits by Margaret Keane, but Joan honestly defended them. She used to say that each had a particular meaning to her, whether she'd had them since the 1930s, or because she and Alfred Steele had purchased them on one of the many business trips they took for Pepsi in the 1950s. "You don't have to live with them; I do," she would state flatly, "and they make me happy."

Try reading the article, r36. It's short.

R28 I had an apartment with parquet throughout, it was pretty nice actually. A two-tone effect of lighter wood with a darker wood border inlaid about 6" from the walls. I had it lifted, sound proofing fitted underneath then relaid and refinished. It wasn't cheap but it wasn't more expensive than good quality carpeting and it fitted the style of building. When I came to sell it added a few bucks too - "oh my, look at that original flooring! And in such good condition!".

Casted

I was talking about OP's link, not r2's.

No one said OP's apt was Crawford's, R36, only that it was in the same building.

[quote]I agree. It's a shitty apartment. Joan Crawford must have been pretty short on cash in her latter years.

Not at all. Regardless of what some people think, some of the East Side "wedding cake" white brick buildings were made like cast iron, and for many are quite desirable. The Imperial House was at a time a very fashionable address and remains quite popular. I don't think it is shoddy in the slightest, though perhaps 8' ceilings are a deal breaker for some, but certainly not all. Liza's pad just sold for a lot more, and yes, this 2-bedroom seems extravagantly priced. Still, if you want your home to hold its value and perhaps sell at a nice profit, buy one at The Imperial House!

[quote]Still, if you want your home to hold its value and perhaps sell at a nice profit, buy one at The Imperial House!

No. I think I'll go for a pre-war if I ever go back to New York and the East 60s around Lexington is such a '60s/70s address.

A lot of people seem to have shitty taste at The Imperial. Look at this sofa! I can hear the farting noises from across the Atlantic.

Hideous building.

God, R45, that really is a hideous building.

I think she was more Alexander's than Bloomingdale's

[quote]That's the same building, but that wasn't Joan's old apartment.

It's got the exact same parquet. What R47 quotes implies that Crawford removed white carpeting from her apartment and replaced it with parquet by choice, but it's unlikely that she and another person in the complex just happened to get the same parquet. That parquet came with the apartment!

Crawford wasn't broke. She was worth about $3 million when she died, which was a substantial amount of money for the 1970s. $3 million was worth a helluva lot more back then than it is now. That was why Christina was so pissed about being disinherited. If Joan didn't have that much when she died, Christina probably wouldn't have cared less about the will.

[quote]That parquet came with the apartment!

Butter.

Apparently $3M 1977 = $12,103,711.34 in 2015

Oh really, R49? Then why was I let go?

[quote]That was why Christina was so pissed about being disinherited.

Often it's about a lot more than just the money.

She had Pepsi money.

Not for nothing, but for $2.5 million, the realtor could put more than 5 pictures of the place in the listing. I'm sure the two tiny, windowless bathrooms are dreadful since they were not showcased.

That apartment would probably be $500,000 anywhere else, if even that much. NY is nuts.

Why hasn't this been designated a National Historic Landmark?

Lucille Ball also had an apt. in the Imperial House for many years. God, can you imagine getting into the elevator and there's Lucy and Joan?

Here's La Joan on the street in front of Imperial House. Très glam!

R48, almost every apartment in NYC has that exact same parquet floors, especially those built in 1960's. They are cheaper to install than regular slat wood floors and the individual pieces can easily be replaced.

I started another thread about how to go about decorating OP's apt.

Hope you don't mind, OP. I thought it deserved a thread of its own rather than just tagging it onto the end of this one.

I don't understand the appeal of Carlton Varney.

He designed Ethel Merman's New York apartment and I thought it was ugly as well.

Was Carlton Varney Sears' in-house decorating consultant, R62?

A little dated, but could be gorgeous with some TLC.

R12

"In New York City, condo and co-op buildings have their own rules about pieds-à-terre.

“Some buildings don’t allow them at all and some allow them, and add restrictions, and I understand why,” Kaufman says. “You are always worried that the pied-à-terre owners are not fully invested in the quality and the care of the building and that they will not do all the right things in terms of maintaining the security of the building. Since they are frequently absent, they perhaps might allow others to use their apartment, and might be less serious about building rules since it’s not their primary residence.”

There you have it in a nutshell. Cooperative living is just that, and some buildings frown upon having someone from out of city, state or even country simply swanning in now and then when mood strikes but otherwise not wholly vested in the interest of building.

That apartment belongs to me!