Alex Edelman, a comedian and writer, lives in a two-bedroom condo on the Upper East Side, smack in the middle of what he calls the synagogue district. To Mr. Edelman, 32, who grew up Orthodox in Brookline, Mass., and is still observant — religious identity is a theme of his solo show, “Just for Us,” at the Cherry Lane Theater through Feb. 20, and then at SoHo Playhouse for six weeks, starting on March 14 — the neighborhood feels cozy and familiar. Familial, too. His aunt and uncle have an apartment barely four blocks away.
“I love having my relatives close,” he said. “It’s essential, at least for me.” (Tiny pause) “I’m a big fan of having people in my business all the time.”
In any case, there’s far less tumult uptown than in Greenwich Village and environs, where Mr. Edelman lived during college. He moved to the condo in 2012, soon after his parents bought it. The timing of the transaction was propitious — he had recently graduated from New York University and needed somewhere to settle.
“My mom is a real estate lawyer, and she was like, ‘The market is right, and this would be a good place to live,’” Mr. Edelman recalled. “It was her decision. She and my father wanted a place to stay when they came to town.”
Near a bookcase is a poster signed by Eddie Izzard. He and Mr. Edelman were part of comedy show to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.Credit…Katherine Marks for The New York Times
Alex Edelman, 32
Occupation: Comedian and writer
No grand design: “The apartment isn’t, you know, Architectural Digest. It needs to be refurbished, and the TV is in the wrong place. But a lot of the stuff in here is interesting to me and important to me.”
The welcome mat is always out. During Hurricane Sandy, 11 people bunked there. (Take that literally — one of the bedrooms has bunk beds.) Mr. Edelman’s brother A.J. Edelman, who represented Israel in skeleton at the 2018 Olympic Games, stays for a spell from time to time, and several comedian colleagues from abroad have made themselves at home when on tour or vacation in the States.
In return, they’re asked to leave a note and a tchotchke. This modest request explains the dried lavender, the candle, the rather inexpertly carved wooden box on the sill in the living room, and the revolving crystal that hangs in the window and tosses tiny rainbows around the apartment when the morning light is right.
Mr. Edelman chooses not to share the financial details of the condo purchase, except to say that he and his two brothers are owners of the property along with their parents, and he pays most of the monthly common charges.
The outfitting of the apartment has been a family affair. Mr. Edelman bought the clear molded-plastic chairs — Philippe Starck’s interpretation of Baroque salon seating — that ring the dining table, with one left over for his desk. He is visibly delighted that the Breuer Wassily chair, a favorite reading perch in his childhood home, has made its way to New York, and he is more than a little proud of the Claes Oldenburg print he bought from the estate of his idol, Robin Williams.
“It was the first piece of art I ever bought,” Mr. Edelman said. “I love this little print. It’s really gorgeous.”
He can’t summon nearly as much enthusiasm for the toast-colored tweed sectional and matching accent chair — both supplied by his parents. “It’s not exactly world-class furniture. It’s kind of shvach,” he said, using the Yiddish word for weak or underwhelming. “We’re due for a refurbishing.”
The condo itself has grown on Mr. Edelman, who began spending large chunks of time in Britain soon after moving in — he won the “best newcomer” comedy award at the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, a prize that put a gust of wind in his sails. “At the time, home was, like, a blue suitcase,” he said.
“It wasn’t until I started going to other places that I really thought of the apartment as home,” continued Mr. Edelman, who also rents a one-bedroom in Los Angeles, where he goes periodically for work and to visit his girlfriend, “Hacks” star Hannah Einbinder. “I started to look forward to coming back here and recuperating until it was time to go somewhere else, and I started to fill it up with things.”
The “things” fall into three basic categories.
There are the mementos of career high points, like the cue cards from Mr. Edelman’s first appearance on “Conan,” in 2018, complete with a self-caricature sketched by Mr. O’Brien; a poster from the aforementioned Edinburgh Fringe Festival; and a poster signed by Eddie Izzard when he and Mr. Edelman were part of the lineup for a show to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. A bouquet of lanyards with ID holders from comedy festivals, cruise ships and awards shows spills over the edge of Mr. Edelman’s desk.
“I love all these, actually,” he said. “They spur different memories.” Perhaps, for example, a memory of making off with Billy Crystal’s lanyard at the 2019 San Francisco Sketchfest.
There’s the sports memorabilia: a bat and several baseballs from when Mr. Edelman, not yet a career comedian, worked in public relations for the Boston Red Sox (he once sat next to Justice Stephen G. Breyer at a game), the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Milwaukee Brewers.
But mostly there are books. They are on the coffee table, on the desk and in the built-in cupboards in the bunk room. They are double-stacked on the bookcase near the front door. Mr. Edelman pulled out this one and that one: the multiple copies of a particular favorite, Frederick Exley’s 1968 novel “A Fan’s Notes”; a long-sought copy of “Max Jamison,” an out-of-print novel by Wilfrid Sheed; a signed copy of Menachem Begin’s autobiography that Mr. Edelman found at a used bookstore in Israel; a poetry collection by John Ashbery that Mr. Ashbery signed for Mr. Edelman at a reading; a copy of the Jhumpa Lahiri short-story collection “Interpreter of Maladies.”
“I saw her somewhere in Brooklyn and said, ‘Excuse me, I’m reading your book right now,’ and I got her to sign it,” Mr. Edelman recalled.
Each book, he added, “is a totem of some specific time and place. When you’re someone who travels so much and is in places for short periods, it’s hard to remember all those times and places. The books help.”
They also help him feel more fully at home.
“Initially, I guess I thought, ‘This apartment is not in a cool part of town,’” Mr. Edelman said. “But I did better academically when I was living somewhere that was quiet, so I realized living in a quiet place, I was probably going to do better comedically, too.”
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