The Grimms live on the Upper East Side...but like...do they?
Okay so let me preface this whole post by saying I do not live in New York, I’ve been to visit, I know A LOT about it, but I don’t live there so this is all secondhand knowledge primarily.
So, yesterday, I was sitting in my office, listening to a podcast about the history of elevated trains on the East Side (it’s from the Bowery Boys Podcast which is New York History and I strongly recommend it). They mentioned a neighborhood called Yorkville, which is in the UES (Upper East Side for the purposes of this post). They mentioned a few different facts about it and I was interested enough to listen to their podcast entirely on the neighborhood.
I was interested because I have NEVER gotten over the fact that MB said the Grimms lived in the UES. This has never made a lot of sense to me, and I know others have complained about this too ( @curls-cat if it wasn’t you, you probably remember who it was). The Grimms would be incredibly well off to live in the UES, we’re talking like Gossip Girl, private school rich. It just…make it make sense.
So, this information that they live there has lived rent free in my head for YEARS. But then I started learning about Yorkville. It’s just East of what we think of when we think UES. It stretches from about like… 3rd Av to the East River. It was originally a German settlement and has largely retained that identity, though it is also populated by other Eastern European communities, and many Italians. Now this got my attention, because if it was a German community, I could see a train of thought MB could have followed, even if it’s not entirely German anymore. So for the rest of the day I was busy thinking about the possibility that I could have just deciphered MBs weirdest faux pas.
When I got home I checked Once Upon a Crime, where they go the the girls’ old apartment. Sabrina says they go North on Madison Ave, to the corner of 88th (This would be East 88th as we’re East of Central Park) And they start walking East towards York. Sabrina mentions a few landmarks which is helpful, Ottomamelli’s which is nearby, and Glaser’s Bakery which closed in 2018. By this point we’re like IN Yorkville, nearing on Carl Shurz Park, bordering the East River. At this point I know they do live in Yorkville and I’m doing a little dance for figuring it out!!
But then I realize they mention an actual street address. They stop at 448. So, naturally I look up 448 E88th st and am rewarded with:
A gray-blue apartment, just like the one Sabrina describes!!! She said it used to be yellow, but Google maps photos only goes back to 2009, and this was published in 2007 so unfortunately I can’t tell if it really used to be yellow.
Now, this proves the Grimms live in Yorkville, but like, does that mean they aren’t UES rich? The short answer is yes, it’s a more modest, family friendly neighborhood than most of the stereotypical UES. But, I went a step further and looked up the apartment on apartments.com and streeteasy. I couldn’t find any recent rent info on any two or three bedrooms (which I’m guessing they would have had) but I found that in Oct. 2020, a studio rented for $1,500 a month. Now my midwestern sensibilities just had a tiny heart attack but it’s New York, what are you going to do? I looked up other studio apartments in different areas of Manhattan (I avoided the other boroughs because that’s opening a different can of worms) But it looks like a typical studio South of like 96th, will run you between $1,000 and &1,700 a month.
So it’s not flawless data, for sure, but I’d say in the early 2000s, the Grimms would have been upper middle class or middle class.
In the end, MB did actually make it make sense, but like, only if you live in NY and are familiar with the UES. Either way I’m happy I figured out a little mystery and hope you all enjoyed the sleuthing!
titsay
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romaincrisis
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