Visit to 421 Broome Street Today

[ifyoucantfixit]

       Thank you very much Jim for posting these lovely pictures.  It gave a very good slant on him
regarding the places he was in on a daily basis...........thank you again.......

[Aloysius J. Gleek]

From New York Magazine:

Developing
2/7/08
12:45 PM

The New York Real-Estate Market
Will Outlive Us All



Looking for a spiffy new place? Corcoran has got just the thing! A three-bedroom, two-bath, 4,400-square-foot space with a gourmet kitchen, office, and balcony overlooking the heart of Soho.

Amenities include fifteen-foot tin ceilings, cast-iron columns, exposed-brick walls, a wood-burning fireplace, and one unique feature that will really impress your friends and co-workers: It's the very apartment in which Heath Ledger died. Yes, a scant two weeks after Ledger overdosed in his apartment at 421 Broome Street, his place is apparently already on the market.

This is New York, after all, and as one broker tells the Post, "You don't wait around in a hot rental market like this."

The cocktail-party anecdote that living in the deceased actor's pad will provide is going to cost you, though: According to the Post, the place is going for $25,000 a month now, $3,000 up from what Ledger started renting it for back in September. But that’s nothing compared with what they're going to start asking for it once someone says it's haunted.

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/02/heath_ledgers_apartment_on_the.html



And from The New York Post:

LIFE AFTER LEDGER





February 7, 2008 -- It didn't take long for Heath Ledger 's rental apartment in SoHo to go back on the market.

We hear that the fourth-floor loft at 421 Broome St., where the actor met his demise as a result of mixing an assortment of drugs on Jan. 22, is already quietly being shopped around.

"You don't wait around in a hot rental market like this," says one broker. "As ghoulish as it sounds, people will

rent that place in a heartbeat, especially when the vacancy rate is below 1 percent."

The spacious 4,400-square-foot apartment, which Ledger began renting last September for approximately $22,000 a month, includes three bedrooms, 2½baths, an office, laundry room, gourmet kitchen and a small balcony.

Also featured are 15-foot tin ceilings, cast-iron columns, exposed-brick walls and a wood-burning fireplace.

Sources say it's now being offered for around $25,000 a month.

But for all that money you're still going to have to open the lobby door and haul your own packages. Instead of a doorman, the five-unit building uses an audio/visual intercom system with key-locked elevator.

Calls to the previous listing broker, the Corcoran Group's Darren Kearns, were not returned. The owner of the building, Donald A. Burns - who recently sold "Old Trees," his Southampton estate that had a $48 million price tag - could not be reached for comment.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/02072008/realestate/life_after_ledger_118140.htm

[Aloysius J. Gleek]

From New York Magazine:

The Approval Matrix: Week of February 11, 2008
Our deliberately oversimplified guide to who falls where on our taste hierarchies.

Published Feb 4, 2008




This time ex-Aussie owner Rupert Murdoch's and Aussie editor Col Allen's The New York Post itself is in the Lower-Left Quadrant, the Lowbrow and Despicable Corner (as usual).

(Scroll to the right to see the entire Matrix.)

http://nymag.com/arts/all/approvalmatrix/43570/

[David In Indy]

Thank you John for all these pictures and information. I appreciate your hard work and efforts! 

OT: Kerry or Katie please correct me if I'm wrong but did you all know there is a Broome, Australia? It is situated on the west coast of Australia, on the same coast as Perth, Heath's hometown. Isn't it strange he died in an apartment on Broome street? I wonder if Broome street was named after Broome, Australia? Maybe this is what promped Heath to look at the apartment in the first place and then decide to rent it.

Maybe the name reminded him of home.   

[Aloysius J. Gleek]

(The following text is now much modified, as I had to write this on line and then re-draft as I went. Sorry.)

So. As I had been attempting to report on the neighborhoods (and environs) around 421 Broome Street, I thought I would mention the following site: gridskipper.com actually has one of the more accurate articles, in re: geographic particulars, if is not particularly sympathetic. In fact, while "attempting" not to be, it can be salacious. Whatever.

In any case, I thought it might still be interesting for some BetterMostians who want to see the places mentioned in the article, and SoHo, NoHo, and the Meatpacking/West Village neighborhoods.

I've added two of my photos here at the top, the restaurant/bar called Gonzales y Gonzalez, where (supposedly) Heath spent Thanksgiving, see number 6 listed below. (I have to say: shudder.) Twenty-five years ago, when I was a kid--hah!--the exact same neon marquee (on Broadway) was then above the then title, Bar Lui. (We called it "Bar Looie." What did we know.) It was a great place, just around the corner from the Angelika Theater, on Houston and Mercer. I've never been to the restaurant since it became G y G. I'm sure it's a nice place. But Heath's last Thanksgiving? Sigh.

Gosh. THIRTY years ago, I went to NYU, Washington Square Campus. How time flies. So different. (The Gramercy Hotel, number 8 below, was very-shabby-NOT-chic for, well, forever. Now, very recently, it is very NOT-shabby and very, VERY chic.)

But somehow--New York is always changing. Which means it is NOT so different. Am I making sense? Anyway.

Gonzalez y Gonzalez: Neon Marquee



Gonzalez y Gonzalez Restaurant & Bar


Something NOT mentioned in this gridskipper.com article: Beatrice Inn (number 4 in the article below) was the "top-secret hipster restaurant of the season" a year ago, and is co-owned by Paul Sevigny (Chloe's brother). Again, supposedly, Heath was seen drinking there one night. He was, supposedly, wearing a hoodie and a ski-mask, and he was drinking through the hole of the mask. Again: shudder. Sad.

(The photo of Beatrice Inn immediately below is by New York Magazine, not me.)


One day soon I hope I will post some photos showing happier images of SoHo and environs, a really great place, but in the meanwhile, here is one of my photos, as Heath apparently liked playing chess in Washington Square Park (see number 7 on the list below): I took this photo Christmas Eve, just before I did walk over to the Angelika, a very New York thing to do.

Christmas Eve, 2007, 9:30 PM




Anyway. Here at last, the article. The first link is a numbered map. The second link shows a series of photos (supposedly) showing Heath's last days in New York, downloaded from the Gawker site on January 22, 2008.



gridskipper.com
The Urban Travel Guide
EDITED BY CHRIS MOHNEY

New York
Heath Ledger's Final Months



"The untimely death of 28 year-old actor Heath Ledger from a possible overdose of sleeping pills has left many shocked. Ledger had a promising career, and less than six months ago, he was living happily with his daughter and then-fiancée Michelle Williams. Sadly, their relationship ended over the summer, and if you believe what you read in the tabloids, the final months of Heath Ledger's life were filled with constant partying and promiscuity. This map follows the trail of Heath's many exploits in the weeks prior to his death as told by the New York gossip columns."

(For map, click to: http://gridskipper.com/347839/heath-ledgers-final-months

(For photos, click to: http://gawker.com/817865/10642/these-are-believed-to-be-amongst-the-last-images-of-heath-ledger-alive)

1.
Boerum Hill brownstone
Brooklyn, NY 11217

On September 18, 2007, moving trucks showed up to take Heath Ledger from the Boerum Hill brownstone that he had moved into with Michelle Williams in 2005. The couple split last August much to the dismay of fans… and media folk who saw them as an ideal example of domestic bliss in Brooklyn.



2.
421 Broome Street
New York, NY 10013

After leaving Brooklyn, Heath Ledger relocated to this Soho apartment. The New York Post reported that he had one of the… rooms here remodeled to match his daughter Matilda's space in their old brownstone so she would feel at home when she visited him. On January, 22 2008, Ledger was found naked, unconscious, and surrounded by sleeping pills in his bedroom here. He was pronounced dead by the police twenty minutes later.



3.
WAKIYA
2 Lexington Ave.
New York, NY 10010

Danish actress Helena Christensen was one of Heath's first rumored conquests after his engagement fell apart. The pair was seen… dining at this upscale Chinese restaurant five days before Heath moved out of his home in Brooklyn.



4.
Beatrice Inn
285 W 12th St
New York, NY 10014

Throughout the fall, the gossip columns were buzzing with salacious sightings of Heath Ledger at this trendy lounge. In September, New York Magazine said he "and… a buddy tried to get two girls back to his apartment in Soho from the Beatrice Inn." By November, Page Six supposedly had "spies at Beatrice Inn" who claimed that Heath was kissing Kate Hudson inside the bar. Later on in the month New York Magazine had more reports of Ledger "hitting on chicks" at the Beatrice.


5.
Bowery Hotel
335 Bowery
New York, NY 10003

Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams both appeared in the Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There, which opened in November. Tongues… were wagging when Heath showed up to a party at the Bowery Hotel celebrating the film's release while Michelle stayed away.


2 months ago: NEW YORK - NOVEMBER 13: Actor Heath Ledger (L) and Director Todd Haynes attend the dinner for a screening of "I'm Not There" at The Bowery Hotel hosted by The Cinema Society and Hogan November 13, 2007 in New York City.



6.
Gonzalez y Gonzalez
625 Broadway
New York, NY 10012

Page Six says Ledger spent Thanksgiving at this West Village Mexican salsa bar "dressed like a homeless guy"… and hitting up Heather Graham for her number. Radar and Perez Hilton, however, placed Ledger with Lindsay Lohan during the holiday.



7.
Washington Square Park

In a November interview with The New York Times, Heath Ledger said that since moving to Manhattan he sometimes… enjoyed playing games with (and sometimes beating) the chess hustlers at Washington Square Park. He spoke of feeling "stressed" on the set of Batman and sleeping only two hours a night despite taking Ambien.


8.
Gramercy Hotel
Rose Bar
2 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY 10010

One of the more persistent rumors that surrounded Heath Ledger in the months before his death was of a romance… with 21 year-old model Gemma Ward. The pair allegedly spent Christmas together in their shared hometown of Perth, Australia. The New York Post, says they were both in attendance at the Rose Bar when, according to the paper, movie mogul Harvey Weinstein got into a scuffle with a D.J. on November, 10th.

[Meryl]

John, you're quite a good news sleuth!  Thanks for that article.  Very interesting, if sad. 

[Fran]

John, you're quite a good news sleuth!  Thanks for that article.  Very interesting, if sad. 

And the photos of Heath are even sadder. 

On a lighter note, can non-celebrities use Celebrity Moving, or do they only move celebrities? 

[Brown Eyes]

On a lighter note, can non-celebrities use Celebrity Moving, or do they only move celebrities? 

  I was wondering the same thing Friend.

[Aloysius J. Gleek]

Weirder and funnier, Fran and Amanda--"Celebrity Moving" is my design firm's moving company. Most of the clients are not celebrities--but it certainly helps to have $$$ (no joke there).

J.

[cmr107]

Thanks for this article John. You certainly keep us out-of-towners informed.

On September 18, 2007, moving trucks showed up to take Heath Ledger from the Boerum Hill brownstone that he had moved into with Michelle Williams in 2005. The couple split last August much to the dismay of fans… and media folk who saw them as an ideal example of domestic bliss in Brooklyn.

He moved out on my 21st birthday.