Twenty years ago if you would have told entrepreneur Peter Shankman he'd be living on 42nd Street and 9th Avenue, he would have punched you.
"You mean next to drug dealers and crack addicts?!" Shankman told us over his grilled chicken lunch inside of his 56th floor condo in the Orion, around the corner from Port Authority and Times Square. Shankman, the founder of handy journalist tool Help A Reporter Out, and an author and marketing pundit, was born and grew up in Manhattan. A true "borough-bred," as he likes to say.
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But the neighborhood improved, and Shankman, a tri-athlete and Iron Man competitor, was sold on the Hudson River views and lap pool. He and his wife purchased the two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment about a year ago for $1.6 million from the original owner, who used the place as a crash-pad when in the city on business.
These days, Shankman uses the apartment as his office, doing about 30 percent of his business there, and the other 70 percent on airplanes as he travels the country.
"Everything fashionable or pretty in the apartment is due to my wife," Shankman said. "The electronics, the bathrooms, and the kitchen—that's all me."
Shankman, an admitted "geek," is in the process of installing electronic blinds that move with the direction of the sun, and a shower that has pre-set options in it. One of the most important features of the apartment was that it had a wall big enough to hold his flatscreen TV.
Most New Yorkers would cringe at the thought of living so close to Times Square, but Shankman revels in it. "You're so close, yet above it all," he said.
It's hard to not notice the views the instant you walk in the apartment. And judging from the binoculars on the window sill, Shankman hasn't tired of them, either.
From his 56th floor apartment, Shankman can see the new One57 building rising to the north and east. A regular sky diver, he joked that one of the worst things about living so high was knowing he couldn't use his pad to base jump.
The living room has beautiful wood floors, complemented by a white rug and couch with thick cushions. Shankman uses the coffee table as his desk and a lunch table.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider