Zach Braff ('B-R-A-F-F') Closes on $3.2 M. Tom O'Horgan Pad

This July, in one of The Observer's greatest-ever summer intern moments, our own Vince Levy happened to be sitting in a park near the octogenarian Broadway legend Tom O'Horgan.

The actor Zach Braff walked up. "I’m a tremendous fan of your work,” he told Mr. O'Horgan, who directed 70’s-era icons like Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar. The actor had to repeat his name ("Z-A-C-H,” he said, “B-R-A-F-F"), and then he told the director that he was the guy buying Mr. O’Horgan’s high-floor, 2,500-square-foot apartment at 840 Broadway.

Now it's a done deal. According to city records, Mr. Braff used a corny L.A.-based trust named Second Stix to buy the place. He spent $3.2 million, which you may remember from all the ink the apartment's gotten.

Mr. Braff isn't the first famous young face in the building (Heather Graham has the penthouse upstairs), but things used to be much different at 840 Broadway. “We all bought a floor for like 20,000 bucks," a long-time resident told The Observer in the summer, "but mine was still being occupied by a guy making stuffed animals.”