Upper Westside is Matt Damon's new home

The Upper Westside of Manhattan is one of New York City’s premiere residential neighborhoods and is literally “teeming” with celebrities. Historically, after the creation of Central Park, the East side developed into an “old money” neighborhood of big mansions and elegant townhouses: Astors, Whitneys, Vanderbilts and such, while the Westside real estate market languished amid sparse development prolonged by the Panic of 1873. The neighborhood finally began establishing itself as the first grand “apartment building district” in the U.S. with buildings such as The Dakota, the Prasada, the Ansonia, etc. in the 1880s, the gay ‘90’s and early 1900s. Eastsiders thumbed their noses at the Upper West, saying “no one important will EVER live over there!” Early Westsiders included theatre people (horrors!), famous musicians, sports celebrities and immigrants who had actually worked hard to make their fortunes. Today Central Park West has celebs including Madonna, Baryshkinov, Donna Karan, Mark Cuban, Darren Star, LeBron James, Josh Groban, Armani, Denzel Washington, Sting, Nascar driver Jeff Gordon and a Russian billionaire driving up prices with his new $88million purchase. It was 1892 when the residents of the Upper Westside, well aware that the area was beginning to boom as a grand residential district, petitioned the city to change the numbered names of the avenues to much grander-sounding names such as Central Park West (for Eighth Ave.), Columbus Avenue (because of newly named Columbus Circle and the newly presented statue of Columbus), Amsterdam Ave. (Dutch revival was all the rage in the 1890’s), WestEnd Avenue (after London’s WestEnd) and Riverside Drive (for obvious reasons). When I first moved to New York City and lived with relatives on West 68th Street, this once grand old NYC neighborhood had become a low-rent, run-down section of town with many Laundromats, hardware stores, Mom & Pop shops and boarded up buildings. There were hundreds of gorgeous old buildings begging to be discovered and renovated which finally happened in the 1980’s. In a previous column I mentioned that Lady Gaga grew up around the corner from my old apartment (on W. 70th St.) and still lives there occasionally with her parents. Other celebs who have flocked to the Upper Westside include: Jerry Seinfeld, Glenn Close, Helen Gurley Brown, Bono, Steven Spielberg, Diane Keaton, Steve Martin, Dustin Hoffman, Demi Moore, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas. In one building near Lincoln Center are: Celine Dion, Howard Stern, Liam Neeson, Regis Philbin, Alan Alda, Marilu Henner, Tony Danza, Julie Andrews, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner! Mega-watt movie star Matt Damon, his wife Lucy and their brood, has also made New York home over his native Boston. After many years of living in a loft downtown on Lafayette Street, Damon was forced to re-locate from the East Village when the NY Post published a photo of him entering his building. On the side of his building was a billboard of his latest Bourne movie with the headline: BOURNE GOES HOME… and a Post paparazzi got a great picture of Damon entering the building with the billboard in plain view. Ahh…the problems of the rich & famous…the loss of privacy in exchange for a $20 million paycheck (per movie!) For now, he’s moved the entire family (wife and several daughters) up to W. 86th Street in a gorgeous old rental building with an interior garden courtyard built by John Jacob Astor. Real estate sources say Damon is searching for a place to buy in the neighborhood but keeps getting outbid by people with deeper pockets than a film star. Although Damon is Boston-born and bred, he’s obviously chosen Yankee territory over Red Sox territory as his home. Jim Dykes is the co-founder of Rich and Famous Tours of NYC. For more information go to: www.JimDykes.com or www.RichandFamousTours.com

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