{"id":232731,"date":"2026-05-15T15:10:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T15:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/232731\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T15:10:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T15:10:20","slug":"to-stay-or-go-the-last-family-living-in-a-gramercy-walk-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/232731\/","title":{"rendered":"To Stay or Go? The Last Family Living in a Gramercy Walk-up."},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n Annie with cat Sarah, baby Rose and husband Jason in the family living room, formerly the HQ for her mother\u2019s illustration agency.
\n Photo: Anne Kadet\n <\/p>\n

Annie Grossman\u2019s new landlord would like her to relocate to an apartment in the landmarked building he owns just down the block. It\u2019s a tempting offer. If she gives up her rent-stabilized, 1,500-square-foot two-bedroom in Gramercy, which she rents for $1,300 a month, he\u2019ll install Annie and her family in a larger, newly renovated unit at the same rate for the rest of her life.<\/p>\n

Her current apartment has issues. There was no hot water for several spells last winter. It has a railroad layout, so none of the rooms have doors except the tiny bathroom. There\u2019s so much stuff and so few closets \u201cthat we\u2019re essentially living in a closet,\u201d she says. Her three daughters share a full-size bed that fills every inch of the tiny second bedroom, and the larger bedroom, which doubles as a home office with a desk for herself and her husband, also includes a clothesline for drying the laundry. And life there can feel a little eerie.\u00a0\u201cWe are the only tenants in the whole building,\u201d Annie says. \u201cAll the neighbors either took buyouts or died.\u201d<\/p>\n

And yet their Third Avenue home, also occupied by a chihuahua mix named Poppy and Sarah, an orange tabby, is crammed with far more than her late father\u2019s paintings, three sofas, vintage posters, a playpen, toys, books, plants, pet beds, a piano, a big-screen TV, and a jumble of vintage and Ikea furniture.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

\n From left: The living room which used to host the illustrators agency run by Annie\u2019s mother. Photo: Anne KadetThe desk in the parents\u2019 bedroom that Annie shares with her husband. Photo: Anne Kadet\n <\/p>\n

\n From top: The living room which used to host the illustrators agency run by Annie\u2019s mother. Photo: Anne KadetThe desk in the parents\u2019 bedroom that Ann… more
\n From top: The living room which used to host the illustrators agency run by Annie\u2019s mother. Photo: Anne KadetThe desk in the parents\u2019 bedroom that Annie shares with her husband. Photo: Anne Kadet\n <\/p>\n

It\u2019s where Annie grew up, and where her mother used to run her business, and where, for two years, she herself ran a training school for dogs (and later wrote a book about it<\/a>). And then there are the not-so-warm-and-fuzzy memories that have become an essential part of the family lore, like the time when the apartment caught fire and the day she discovered her upstairs neighbor dead on the toilet. \u201cMy husband was the last person to see her alive, and I was the person who found her, so we ended up being interviewed as potential murder suspects,\u201d says Annie. Now the apartment is where her children are growing up. If they stay, one of them could eventually take over the lease. While Annie says she\u2019s not particularly attached to the place, there\u2019s a lot she\u2019d be leaving behind.<\/p>\n

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\n Annie\u2019s current building, on the right, is just two doors down from the building where her landlord has offered her a bigger, newer apartment.
\n Photo: Anne Kadet\n <\/p>\n

On a recent weekday morning, Annie, 46, nursed her baby, Rose, at the dining table in the middle room as she recalled the apartment\u2019s history. She remembers when the room served as both a living room and a conference space for her mother\u2019s illustrators agency.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were five employees working there sometimes,\u201d says Annie. \u201cSome of them were like second parents to me.\u201d Staffers in the front office smoked, gabbed on the phone, and chatted with the illustrators and couriers stopping by the third-floor walk-up to drop off portfolios. Everyone shared the kitchen and bathroom; Annie and her mom slept in the back bedrooms. Many afternoons after school, Annie worked alongside the agents, bookkeepers, and assistants, doing her homework or helping with the filing. \u201cCollating was a word I knew very young,\u201d says Annie.<\/p>\n

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\n Annie\u2019s mother, Vicki Morgan, in her illustration agency.
\n Photo: Courtesy of the subject\n <\/p>\n

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\n From left: Photo: Courtesy of the subjectPhoto: Courtesy of the subject\n <\/p>\n

\n From top: Photo: Courtesy of the subjectPhoto: Courtesy of the subject\n <\/p>\n

Because she was born into the arrangement, it never occurred to Annie that the situation was in any way unusual. Her mother, Vicki Morgan, had moved into the apartment with her first husband in 1970. She\u2019d been living across the street in a studio and applied for the apartment when she saw a listing. She got it because she knew the super managing the building. The rent: $400 a month.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was making $75 to $90 a week at the time, so $400 was a lot!\u201d says Vicki. She kept the apartment when her first marriage ended and started her agency in the front room, Vicki Morgan Associates (the company logo was a box of cigarettes with the tagline \u201cVicki Morgan Satisfies\u201d).<\/p>\n

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\n Her mother\u2019s agency logo.
\n Photo: Courtesy of the subject\n <\/p>\n

\u201cShe started out from basically nothing and became a well-known person in the industry. Pretty badass for a woman in the 1970s,\u201d Annie says of her mother. Running the operation out of the apartment spared Vicki the cost of renting an office, but it wasn\u2019t an easy life. \u201cShe worked all the time and was very stressed about money and making ends meet,\u201d says Annie. For Annie, it meant she was always hyperaware of the precarious situation they were in. \u201cOn the other hand,\u201d she says, \u201cit gave me a sense early on that luck might be just be around the corner \u2014 the phone could ring and it could be a big job!\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the first illustrators Vicki represented was Robert Grossman<\/a>, who eventually became Annie\u2019s dad \u2014 his art still decorates the walls. This second marriage lasted about a year, and because Grossman maintained a rent-stabilized loft in Soho, he never fully moved in. \u201cHe took one box when he left,\u201d Annie recalls.<\/p>\n

Annie left in 1998 when she went to college and later lived in Brooklyn with her first husband. But after a 2011 divorce, she moved back in with her mom. And that\u2019s when the situation reached peak madhouse: Annie, who had been training dogs on the side while working as an associate producer for Animal Planet, quit her job and launched her own business \u2014 School for The Dogs<\/a> \u2014 out of the middle room.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n A School for the Dogs session in the middle room, which is now the dining room.
\n Photo: Ellen Senisi\n <\/p>\n

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\n The family dining room now was formerly Annie\u2019s dog-training facility.
\n Photo: Anne Kadet\n <\/p>\n

Thanks to her attention-getting tactics (she was featured in The Wall Street Journal for training dogs how to use iPads<\/a>), the school was a big success. Clients came by with their unruly pooches \u2014 up to six at a time \u2014 for group sessions in the windowless middle room that Annie had converted into a training facility with urine-safe flooring, a dog-food freezer, and wire racks stuffed with toys and equipment. After training sessions, the dogs frolicked on the sprawling back deck that Annie had transformed into a canine playground, complete with a swimming pool. Annie slept in the little bedroom and used the larger bedroom, with a newly installed Murphy bed, as a combination office, company storage space, and guest room for her mother, who was now living with her third husband. Her mother\u2019s agency, meanwhile, was still humming away in the front. \u201cIt was madness. It was craziness,\u201d Annie says.<\/p>\n

The circus lasted two years. Annie\u2019s mother moved the agency out in 2013 and Annie took the front room as her own bedroom and living room, devoting the rest of the apartment to the growing dog-training business. It was a great setup with just one problem: Annie learned that it was totally illegal, and her landlord was growing suspicious. But before things came to a head, the apartment caught fire.<\/p>\n

Annie remembers hearing a strange crackling sound late one night when she was watching TV in the front room. Minutes later, the apartment filled with smoke and she escaped with just her dog and cat. It took 40 firefighters to put out the blaze. \u201cThe two back rooms were completely destroyed,\u201d says Annie. \u201cJust rubble. And everything in this room melted. It was this hilarious exhibition of melted dog toys. I lost about half my stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

She moved out for a year while the place was renovated and found a commercial space in the East Village for her dog school for $3,000 a month. When she moved back in, she had the whole apartment to herself. The landlord did the cheapest possible renovation, she says, \u201cbut it was still totally new, and having been in this apartment for so many decades, living on top of my mom\u2019s stuff and moving things around, it was amazing. It was a really incredibly wonderful thing to feel like, Oh, this is mine now, wow! One exception: She rented the small bedroom for $650 a month (which paid half her rent at the time) to a young woman who used it during the day to practice guitar.<\/p>\n

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\n Annie in the little bedroom.
\n Photo: Courtesy of the subject\n <\/p>\n

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\n The little bedroom, now shared by Annie\u2019s three daughters.
\n Photo: Anne Kadet\n <\/p>\n

The solitude was temporary. Annie met her current husband, Jason, a year later. He remembers the first time he saw her home and being impressed with its size and the high ceilings. He didn\u2019t marry her for the apartment, he says, \u201cbut it was certainly a bonus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking back, Annie says her life would have looked very different if it weren\u2019t for the low rent on 194 Third Avenue. It allowed both her and her mother to take the risk of starting a business, and Jason has been able to continue running the nonprofit he founded<\/a>. \u201cI feel like I definitely can thank the apartment for making it possible to do that, and also to live in the middle of Manhattan without having to have 15 roommates,\u201d says Annie. \u201cAnd to have kids here. It\u2019s a huge blessing in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worked out so far. But how long can Magnolia, Marigold, and Rose, who are all under age 8, continue to share a bed? Or the single bathroom the size of a closet? One idea: Annie and Jason may move into the front room and let the kids have both of the back bedrooms. \u201cWe\u2019ll figure it out,\u201d says Jason. \u201cWe can move things around.\u201d<\/p>\n

If they decide against accepting their landlord\u2019s offer, that is. \u201cI know my kids want everything to stay the same forever and live in this apartment when they grow up,\u201d says Annie. \u201cIt\u2019s been a gift in so many ways. But if it turns out to be a gift I can upgrade, that\u2019s like winning the lottery.\u201d<\/p>\n


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