Bowie's New York apartment sells for $16 million

David Bowie's New York apartment, where he lived with his wife Iman until his death in 2016, has been sold for $16.8 million. The property spent less than one month on the market and was sold on July 11.

Bowie bought the Soho flat in 1993 for a quarter of its price today. The nine-story building on Lafayette Street was originally built in 1886 as the Hawley & Hoops chocolate factory before being converted into an apartment building in the 1990s.

The 5,000 square foot residence is impressive. It contains four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a library, three terraces, an open-plan kitchen, and elevator access. The main bedroom suite alone takes up one-fifth of the space and includes a fireplace, dressing room, an oversized bath, and a private terrace.

The selling of the apartment comes just weeks after one of the singer’s original paintings sold at an auction in Canada for $108,120. The collector reported bought the piece for a mere $5. Likewise, in March, one of Bowie's suits was sold in London for £8,000.

Since Bowie's death in 2016, the apartment has been the site of numerous memorials. It is symbolic of the artist's time in New York. In Will Brookers' 2017 biography Forever Stardust: David Bowie Across the Universe, he wrote “Bowie loved living in SoHo/Nolita. He felt at home, semi-anonymous, among New Yorkers too cool to act star-struck at celebrity sightings.”