The Wendy Wasserstein Apartment

SELLER: estate of Wendy Wasserstein
LOCATION: 75 Central Park West
PRICE: $5,220,000 / sale price (maintenance: $3,331 /month)
SIZE: 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: This warm and elegant 8 into 7 room apartment sits high up on the SE corner of a pre-war Candela building facing the Park Flexible layout with 3 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, LR with WBFP, Formal Dining Room, with built-ins, grand Chef's EIK, MBR with dressing area. Classic renovation. Panoramic views, W/D, Family friendly

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: This lovely apartment with a thoughtful floor plan was owned by noted writer/playwright Wendy Wasserstein. Ms. Wasserstein passed away in January of 2006 due to lymphoma complications. As you know, Your Mama usually makes pithy remarks about the properties and celebrities we're discussing, but with this one we're feeling more reverential than sassy.

As was reported in Max Abelson's Manhattan Transfers column last week, the beloved apartment of Ms. Wasserstein was recently sold for $5,220,000. The apartment, with enviable views of Central Park, was first listed in late July 2006 for $5,475,000 and the price was reduced in late October to $4,995,000. As it turns out, the new owners, who according to Abelson are Brookings Institute fellows Dina and George Perry, paid $225,000 over the last asking price indicating there were likely multiple interested parties.

Wasserstein came to the attention of play goers and literary types in 1977 with her play Uncommon Women and Others. Wasserstein's plays were notable for showing women struggling and coping with contemporary issues of empowerment and the fallacies perpetuated through cookie cutter Hollywood-style romances among other high-minded, but genuine issues.

In addition to her many well received and lauded plays, Ms. Wasserstein wrote several books of essays including the wonderfully titled, Shiksa Goddess. Her first novel, titled Elements of Style, is scheduled to be published post-humously in April of 2007.

The apartment, on the 11th floor of one of Central Park West's quieter, second tier buildings appears to have been an inviting, cozy, and well appointed aerie for Wasserstin, her young daughter Lucy Jane and their coterie of literary and arty friends. Wasserstien's pal, fellow playwright, and frequent house guest Christopher Durang is quoted in Abelson's column saying, "the cats would sit on the table with the flowers—it was very picturesque."

Your Mama wishes Ms. Wasserstein's friends and family well, particularly her daughter who sadly will grow up more familiar with the legend of her mother than the real person. Fortunately Wasserstein's legacy precedes her and she was by all accounts whip smart, tremendously witty, enormously funny, and uncommonly talented.

Sources: NY Observer, NY Times, Stribling NY