Habitats: Private Lives in the Big City

36 Pocket-Sized on West 47th Street: JONATHAN CERULLO IN HELL’S KITCHEN (April 25, 2010)

1 9 6 36 Pocket-Sized on West 47th Street Jonathan Cerullo in Hell’s Kitchen ApRIL 25, 2010 Jonathan Cerullo, a choreographer, director, and actor, in his Hell’s Kitchen studio. (Fred Conrad/The New York Times) 1 9 7 Some of the multitudes who saw an early touring production of Cats in the mid-1980s might remember an exuberant orange tabby named Skimbleshanks. The character, aka the Railway Cat, was played by Jonathan Cerullo, a 20-something dancer who grinned out from behind hand-painted makeup, his body swathed from ears to tail in yak hair as he belted out Skimbleshanks’s jaunty theme song. In 1985, the year before stepping into Skimbleshanks’s ratty-looking fur, Mr. Cerullo had moved into a 348-square-foot apartment in a century -old tenement on West 47th Street in Hell’s Kitchen. The initial rent was about $300 a month, an exceptionally low figure even back then. Cats has long since become a comic’s punch line, and Mr. Cerullo has accrued an 11-page résumé of credits as a choreographer, actor, and director . But he has stayed put in this pocket-sized rent-stabilized space, for which he now pays just over $900. In sinking such deep roots in this neighborhood, a longtime roughand -tumble district defined by rowdy dockworkers as much as by proximity to the theater district, Mr. Cerullo was following in the footsteps of a generation of theater folk. Even in the early 20th century, the tiny apartments in the tenements lining these dreary blocks housed actors and their would-be brethren, who endured tight quarters in exchange for rakish ambience. Some of these troupers left behind reminders of their presence; a theatrical photographer who like Mr. Cerullo has lived for decades in the West 40s discovered a scrapbook bulging with memorabilia from a once celebrated, now forgotten turn-of-the-last-century actress. Like many of his neighbors, Mr. Cerullo made a deal with the devil. In exchange for a still modest rent that has allowed him to follow his muse, he has compressed his domestic life into a minute space. Even for a struggling young performer who hadn’t yet accumulated much in the way of possessions, the square footage was minuscule; some New Yorkers have roomier closets. The apartment can also be hot, dark, and confining . “The space is so small,” Mr. Cerullo acknowledges, “it’s easy to feel like you want to jump out of your skin.” Yet over the past quarter century, he has transformed his Lilliputian home in remarkable fashion. To visit his home is like stepping into a Fabergé egg; the little rooms are gaudy mélanges of intense colors (all those theatrical posters), shiny surfaces (a passion for Art Deco will do that), and castoffs reborn as retro chic. And like those phantasmagoric p O C k E T - S I z E d O N w E S T 4 7 T H S T R E E T 1 9 8 stage sets in which nothing is quite what it seems, every item collapses, converts to something other than what it appears to be, skates about on wheels, or opens to reveal an ingenious feat of design. “When guests come to visit, their jaws drop when they see what I’ve done with the place,” says Mr. Cerullo, a still lithe 50-year-old with a personality as vivid as his décor.“They are floored by the transformative nature of it all. They are truly in awe.” When Mr. Cerullo first encountered the apartment, the space retained many of its original century-old features, among them tin ceilings, gas pipes for long-disappeared sconces, and pine floors edged with dark banding. The pocket shutters in the living room were encrusted with thick black paint, and a fireplace that once burned coal lurked behind a brick wall. After considerable stripping, sanding, and refinishing—and the stiffened fingers to show for it—Mr. Cerullo set to work creating the special effects that give the apartment its now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t quality. In the living room, a futon sofa on casters unfolds to become a double bed. A conference table stashed behind the sofa expands into a full-size dining table; on the eve of the new millennium, Mr. Cerullo served eight guests a seven-course dinner. The vintage coffee table...