Marilyn’s ‘Seven Year Itch’ House Sold for $5.9 Million

First posted here on December 21, 2012

This brownstone building in Manhattan – where, in September 1954, Marilyn filmed a scene from The Seven Year Itch – has been sold for $5.9 million, reports the New York Observer.

“It is a house that launched a million voyeuristic thrills—Marilyn Monroe, clad in lingerie, briefly appeared in a second-story window. Too bad for the neighbours that the famous sex symbol didn’t undress in the window of 164 East 61st Street every night. She only displayed herself when the cameras were rolling, during the filming of The Seven Year Itch.

Mostly, Monroe’s ‘disrobing’ in full view of passersby was a publicity stunt, reported The New York Times. But hardly anyone got to view the real, live Marilyn rather than her celluloid double, with barricades blocking off the street between Third and Lexington. Most of the rest of the film, besides the famed subway grate shot, was filmed elsewhere.

At least the townhouse isn’t entirely changed from how it appeared in Monroe’s day—when it was conceivable that a young woman would find a budget brownstone apartment in the East 60s.

The house, a multifamily with commercial space on the ground floor, has sold for $5.9 million to Oakwood Equities LLC. The buyer would appear to be real estate investor Ira Lifshutz … The five-story building is still divided into apartments, with six residential units (three one-bedrooms, two studios and an owner’s duplex) as well as a doctor’s office on the ground floor. Although we doubt anyone was paying the price that screenwriter Billy Wilder set Monroe’s fictitious rent at: a modest $160 a month.

‘People stopped by all the time,’ said seller Chris Bejoian, who owned the property for 25 years … The building will be delivered vacant. Massey Knackal broker Clint Olsen said that the next owner plans to convert it to luxury rentals. We hope the second-floor tenants have curtains.”