INVITE US UP: Longtime Park Slope resident Eugene Mirman now lives on the top two floors of a two-family townhouse. (Michael Sofronski(4))
The fireplace
His toy-robot collection
‘I’ve lived basically in this two-block radius for 10 years,” comedian Eugene Mirman, 38, says from one of the two decks at his Park Slope duplex
It’s the outdoor space that drew him to this one-bedroom rental, where he’s lived for the past year and a half with longtime girlfriend Katie Tharp.
Mirman was looking for a place that was “specifically high up and with no garden, so there were no bugs and you wouldn’t bother people.” He found an apartment that occupies the top two floors of a two-family, four-story townhouse. “I think it’s about 1,000 square feet, including the outdoor space,” he says. “But I’m guessing the way you would with a jar of jelly beans . . . except that I do know what a foot is.”
The first floor of the duplex has a large open living room and kitchen, along with the couple’s bedroom and the apartment’s sole bathroom. A woodburning fireplace, a wall of exposed brick and the overgrown leaves of an ivy-like plant that wrap around the staircase give the place a cozy, rustic feel.
On the second floor is the couple’s shared office that doubles as a guest room, courtesy of a Murphy bed. A large framed photo of a Russian preschool class rests against the adjacent wall. “My girlfriend had this made for me a few years ago from a much smaller picture we brought from Russia,” Mirman says.
“That’s me,” he adds, pointing to the picture. Then he dryly points to a teacher — who’s wearing a lab-like white overcoat — on the left side of the picture. “Look, everyone’s absolutely terrified of the Russian regime except me,” he says. “I’m giddy I’m leaving.”
The comedian left Moscow with his family in 1978 and has never returned. “I would love to go back,” he says. “It’s a combination of wanting to go back, wanting to do a documentary on it and also being legitimately afraid of Russia because of the stories my parents have told.”
Mirman, who stars on the animated Fox comedy “Bob’s Burgers” as boundlessly energetic pre-teen Gene Belcher, has a far more deadpan delivery in person — especially when it comes to talking about the real estate market. “Finding apartments in New York is probably the worst thing people have to do,” he says flatly.
Tharp first saw a listing for the duplex years back, but someone snatched it up first. The couple continued to look from their old place nearby, on Lincoln Place and Fifth Avenue, in a casual but lengthy search.
When Tharp noticed the duplex was back on the market last April, they didn’t hesitate. Tharp — a set decorator on shows like the TBS sitcom “Are We There Yet?” — made an appointment for the next day and soon after they moved in.
“It’s the first adult apartment I’ve had,” Mirman says of the space. The marble-topped kitchen counter that Tharp built adds to the grown-up feel and houses Mirman’s collection of infused spirits. “This is a jar of Laphroaig I’m trying to infuse with ginger,” he says. “This is dill vodka, and it’s just vodka that I put dill in.”
He also likes to experiment with some rather quirky decor. In the living room sits a wine bottle filled with diabetes needles. “Before [my cat] died, it had diabetes,” he says. “At some point, we left the container where you’re supposed to dispose of those in Massachusetts, so I had to improvise.”
Both Mirman and Tharp hail from Massachusetts (he from the Boston suburb of Lexington, she from the small town of Amherst, where Mirman created his own stand-up comedy major at Hampshire College). Photos of the couple on Cape Cod rest on the fireplace mantel, but they didn’t meet until they both moved to New York. Mirman was celebrating the fourth anniversary of his stand-up variety show, “Invite Them Up,” with Bobby Tisdale. “She wasn’t a fan or anything. I think a friend of hers really wanted to see the show, so they came together,” he remembers. “It was great. The Hold Steady played.”
Mirman again shared a bill recently with the band in Norway at his first show in Oslo. And when he’s not touring, Mirman works out new material during his weekly show, “Pretty Good Friends,” at Park Slope’s Union Hall, just around the corner from his home.
Clearly, his neighborhood for the last decade suits him, but Mirman also has a house in the country in the back of his mind. “I haven’t really looked into it except Googling what things cost,” he says. “But if anyone reading this wants to gift me a house on Cape Cod, I accept.”
Eugene Mirman’s
FAVORITE THINGS
* The grill one on of his two decks
* The fireplace
* His toy-robot collection
* The bottles of infused liquor
* The enlarged photo of his Russian preschool
* His collection of comedy records
* The wine bottle filled with diabetes needles