NYC Actress Lived In City's Cheapest Apartment

GREENWICH VILLAGE, NY — A longtime off-Broadway actress who died in March lived for years in a Greenwich Village apartment where she never paid more than $30 a month in rent, according to her obituary.

Patricia Clare O'Grady died at age 84 in March after she was hit by a car in Greenwich Village, police said. O'Grady was just steps from her apartment at Sixth Avenue and West 13th Street when she was fatally injured.

O'Grady lived in that apartment for more than 60 years, according to her obituary, never paying more than $30 a month thanks to the unit's rent-controlled status.

The unit was quite possibly the cheapest home in Greenwich Village while O'Grady lived there, according to the New York Post, which first reported on O'Grady's shockingly cheap rent. The owner of the building told the Post that O'Grady's apartment would be gutted and renovated, and that he'd likely rent it out as a two-bedroom apartment for about $5,000 a month — which would make it a 16,566 percent increase.

"Ms. O'Grady often said that she 'made a life in the theater without making a living in it,' (A quote not original with her) and this was made possible by her Village apartment where she lived for over 60 years and paid under $30 per month rent," her obituary read. "A friend once dubbed it a 'dump with character,' and as primitive as it was, it enabled her to do exactly what she wanted to do."

The Post reported that in addition to the cheap rent — at the time of her death, O'Grady paid $28.43 a month — the apartment is believed to be one of the last units in New York City to not have heat or hot water. The unit had no tub or shower, and just a single gas light bulb, according to the Post.

O'Grady works as an actor in New York for more than 50 years, with a string of credits listed in her obituary. Her last show was "The Dora Project" in 2000.

Her family said that contributions in her memory could be made to the HB Playwrights Foundation or the Joffrey Ballet School.

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