Joel Meyerowitz is selling the apartment that contained his archive

For 61 years, Joel Meyerowitz has created capricious photographs that have been shown in more than 350 exhibitions. It was collected in 51 books. For 58 of those years, those photographs and their negatives were stored in an apartment on the 11th floor of a 76-unit prewar building at the corner of West End Avenue and 100th Street. He did not initially rent the apartment for that particular use. What happened happened.

He arrived at 817 West End Street in 1965, the year he had his first solo exhibition. He worked as a caretaker on a townhouse on 77th Street to save on rent, “but I had to kill the cockroaches in the apartments below, and I had to change the trash.” He wasted that time at a time when he needed it: he had a new career and a new family. The price for this apartment was $190, an expensive price at the time, but it was large — about 2,000 square feet, with a formal dining room and three bedrooms, enough room for his two young children. He converted a room and bathroom previously designed for a maid into a darkroom, and took photographs in a homemade bathtub. When the building became a residence, the Meyerowitz family purchased it. When they broke up, his archive crept to the edges of the bachelor pad. But in 1993, he began dating Maggie Barrett, a novelist, painter, therapist, and in many ways the opposite of Meyerowitz.

“There was nothing that enchanted me about the apartment,” Barrett said. “I didn’t feel like myself at all.” The old oak doors were covered in layers of paint. The place seemed waterlogged with a past that did not include her. She drags Meyerowitz to a new place in the West Village where they can start over. But the artist, who saved every negativity he uncovered, was loath to give up his home of 28 years. Instead, the apartment remained an archive, with sometimes as many as seven employees coming in and out. (It was all hands on deck after September 11, 2001, when Meyerowitz monitored Ground Zero, releasing several rolls each day that were distributed to newspapers and, eventually, to history books.)

It wasn’t until belt-tightening in 2008 that the couple thought about the stark expenses of a second apartment. Couldn’t they turn the old place into a house they could live in? And a job? They moved back uptown, separating the office from the living space with an innovative door that closed flush into the entrance hall. When it is closed, the visitor will not know that anyone lives on the other side. When open, guests are drawn to the great room and its views across the rooftops and the Hudson River. “The thing everyone notices when they come into this space is not just the light, but the feeling of peace,” Barrett says. When the sun goes down, the great room looks “like a Mark Rothko painting,” she said. “It’s so cool.”

Other changes were less obvious: the smaller, central bedroom was soundproofed so Barrett could continue working as a therapist. She opened up the kitchen, and because she couldn’t imagine living without a fireplace, she added a gas fireplace. The original template has been modified or recreated with the utmost care. I vowed, when they moved in, that this would be their last move. “And here we are, two moves later,” she said.

First there was Tuscany, then a small house in London, near where Barrett grew up, and which has since become their home. “Life in London is community-oriented, very soft and nice,” Meyerowitz said. “It doesn’t have the sharp, rough qualities that New York has.” From a Bronx native who has thrown himself onto the city’s rough edges, this statement is heresy; Because he knows that. But he changed. “I suddenly felt that there was wisdom in Maggie’s way of letting go. We didn’t want to bear the burden of having to drag along the husk of a past life.

The artist was silent for a minute and perked up again when he arrived at a visual metaphor. “Giving up this apartment is like ripping off an old turtle’s shell, kicking it in the ass, and saying, ‘Okay, go swimming.’ See how it feels to be naked.”

The 1907 building has 76 units. Located on the 11th floor on the southwest corner, Meyerowitz’s apartment has sheltered views of Riverside Drive and Hudson.
Photography: Eitan Gameli/Eitan Photography

The corner of the living area was previously a bedroom, but Meyerowitz removed it to open up the room so it would have the unit’s best views of the river.
Photography: Eitan Gameli/Eitan Photography

Maggie Barrett, an illustrator and author, sometimes works at this long table, which she custom-designed for her first shared apartment in the West Village. When the couple began collaborating on books, they would use the long table to review the pages.
Photography: Eitan Gameli/Eitan Photography

Barrett had been dreaming of a “Tuscan-style” kitchen years before he moved to Tuscany, where he stayed for ten years. In a 2009 renovation, she removed a wall that once closed off this kitchen, improved the flow, and upgraded the countertops and appliances.
Photography: Eitan Gameli/Eitan Photography

The room where Meyerowitz keeps his archive—some 15,000 photographs and negatives—was once a formal dining room. Broker Daniel Wiedemann says the room can have a dining table for 20 guests or be configured to serve as a primary bedroom.
Photography: Eitan Gameli/Eitan Photography

Barrett wanted the master bedroom in the northwest corner to be a quiet space.
Photography: Eitan Gameli/Eitan Photography

The second bedroom was once home to one of the Meyerowitz’s two children. The couple isolated the sound so Barrett could use it in her work as a therapist.
Photography: Eitan Gameli/Eitan Photography

A second, smaller bath is where, in the 1960s, Meyerowitz built a chemical bath to expose his own prints.
Photography: Eitan Gameli/Eitan Photography

The master bathroom has an oversized bathtub overlooking the river.
Photography: Eitan Gameli/Eitan Photography

The lobby of the 1907 building was recently renovated.
Photography: Eitan Gameli/Eitan Photography

Views of the western side of the apartment.
Photography: Eitan Gameli/Eitan Photography