Harper Lee had a small NYC apartment no one knew about.

Someone find out if this Solnick fella is a Pulitzer winner, stat.

When she died last week, Harper Lee took with her a number of secrets--not the least of which is that she maintained an apartment in New York City up to her death.

"She's up to date on her rent," said property manager Steven Austern to the New York Post. Indeed, she renewed her lease for another two years just a couple of months before her death. And how much was that rent? $1,000 a month. That's cheaper than most steak dinners in Manhattan.

While it was always known Lee split her time between Alabama and New York, no one expected the reclusive author to own a tiny place in a humble building. Located at  433 E. 82nd St., Lee's apartment had one bedroom and a leaky radiator that ruined her neighbor's ceiling earlier this year. The worn and beaten doorbell list at the apartment complex the Post photographed mentions an obscure "LEE-H"--and that's it. Lest you think she was poverty stricken, the Pulitzer Prize winner reaped millions in royalties from To Kill a Mockingbird and annually received a hefty, comfortable, livable sum from continued sales. She simply chose a modest, quiet life.

Contrast this mindset with Maya Angelou, who's $5 million New York home currently is up for sale, and famously once told the Wall Street Journal about buying a home, "I thought I was going to buy a nice little house. I’d wrap it around me in a poetic way, and I’d live a poetic existence. But then I thought, 'Wait a minute. If I moved from a 10-room house [in California] and into a three-or four-room house, then what am I telling myself? That I’ve been reduced?' I couldn’t do that."

By that logic, Lee wasn't reduced by living in her tiny apartment. She was nonexistent.





photo: Angel Chevrestt, New York Post