THINGS are looking up
LIVING
The view from Christian Stanley’s studio includes the river, Hudson Yards … and his old walk-up just across the street Words Ruth Walker Photographs Christian Stanley
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hen you can look down from your luxury building – complete with rooftop pool and indoor dog park – and see your old “nothing fancy” place, it’s a bold reminder of, quite literally, how far you’ve come. For Christian Stanley – who Instagrams as @soberwolfnyc – the physical distance is just across 10th Ave. But emotionally, it’s much further. When he first arrived in New York 15 years ago, home was a tiny, rent-controlled studio with bars on the window in a walk up on W48th St between 8th and 9th Ave. “The lady who lived upstairs passed away and they didn’t find her for about a week and a half,” he recalls, squirming. “I noticed there was a smell coming from the building, then the flies started coming in. I had a fly infestation for about three months afterwards. “I remember one morning going out to work and they were literally bringing the body down. I thought: this is New York!” It sparked a lifelong love affair with Hell’s Kitchen. “It was my first introduction to the city and I liked it from the beginning. My feeling of New York was this. It wasn’t like the Upper West Side or Madison Square – this is what the city looked like.” He stayed for six years before moving to Boston, getting married, then came back – to that “nothing fancy” little red brick building on 10th Ave. “That was the first apartment my husband and I moved into when we moved from Boston four years ago,” he says. “It was kind of cool to see all the changes. I love the energy.”
“When you turn off all the lights, it’s almost as it the walls disappear and you’re just looking out. The apartment feels huge.” From the sidewalk, he would watch as the neighborhood grew, including the glass and steel high rise that would eventually become his home. And when his marriage ended, he even considered moving to Harlem … maybe Queens … “But I walk everywhere,” he says, “and I love the fact that everything in Hell’s Kitchen is so close. I’m a personal trainer – I train at Mid City Gym on W42nd St. And I like that the neighborhood is not like Chelsea in its heyday: there’s a little bit of everything. It’s diverse, which makes it a lot of fun.” Curiosity finally got the better of him, and he visited 555TEN, that building he’d watched soar from his old walk up. He liked what he saw. And one of the biggest selling points was the indoor dog run for his four-year-old Mauzer (miniature schnauzer/ Maltese) Blu. “I work so my dog can have a better life,” he only half jokes. The studio he moved into in November is his new bachelor pad. Single after seven
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years, he was learning how to do things again. “This was going to be a new adventure. It was a bit of independence and it needed to feel authentically mine.” So he started with everything new. But new didn’t have to mean eye-wateringly expensive. “Thank God for Wayfair and Target!” A self-confessed minimalist, he wanted the dramatic view south to Hudson Yards to be the main focus. “That’s my window to the world,” he says. He took the risky step of painting the walls dark gray, and it paid off. “There’s something really magical about this apartment in the evening. When you turn off all the lights, it’s almost as if the walls disappear and you’re just looking out. The apartment feels huge. “It’s been fun putting it together,” he adds. “I like the comfort of a beautiful building but I don’t need a lot of things. When you’re starting all over again, you realize: what’s the point of dragging crap around? I’d rather have one or two paintings that mean something to me. Equally, some of my favorite things have no monetary value. And that was what I wanted: that when people come to the apartment they couldn’t tell what was expensive and what wasn’t. Everything has a purpose. It feels either functional or decorative, but it has its purpose.” Moving apartment hasn’t been the only big change. After a lifetime working at executive level in retail, and hobbying as a personal trainer on the side, he’s now focusing on his true passion: photography. And, for the time being at
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