Bulgarian Minimalism Meets Manhattan

I have to admire Malena Georgieva. It looks like she did quite a nice job with a bitty apartment in Manhattan

The fourth-floor apartment, for which she pays $1,750 a month, consists of a single room, just over 200 square feet, with a bed, a desk, a dining table and a couple of swivel chairs.

Apparently it is a fourth floor walk up, as the story says she had to cut down a picture a few inches to get it up the stairs. Gotta love New York prices. Thankyou, rent control. What a disaster that has been.

My first apartment in Manhattan, on West 108th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam, was a 275 square feet two bedroom, so I can relate a bit to her 200. I did have a studio apartment in Madison for a while around 1974 which would have been around 200 square feet. It was actually quite nice. Since it was in a mid-19th century house built in what was then a very affluent neighborhood, it had very high ceilings, two big windows facing south, yellow walls with white trim, and between the windows, a Murphy bed.

The kitchen, which was built into what was perhaps once a closet, was a bit on the tight side, though: in order to open the oven door I had to stand in the main room, as the oven door took up the entire floor space. When I moved in I had to use a screwdriver to chisel the mineralization off of the bathroom sink, but other than that it was a cheery place.