Carter's Review

This mid-rise building nicely complements the architecture of the building on the same block on the northwest corner of 57th Street, The Buckingham Hotel. Both are brown-brick structures with limestone bases and nice cornices.

The buildings are separated by the Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde Club building, one of the city s most fanciful with a façade populated by skeletons and a roof with a crashed World War I fighter plane.

In late 2004, numerous older hotel properties began to be converted to luxury condominium apartments to take advantage of a very, very strong market for such units. This building's conversion to condos was highlighted by the addition of two penthouse apartments with large, vaulted ceilings designed by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates and the creation of double-height living rooms in many of the apartments at the corner at the Avenue of the Americas.

Although the roof-top addition and façade changes at the corner are a bit ungainly, they provide important new features.

Other nearby hotels that also converted to condominiums at about the same time included the former Intercontinental Hotels at 110 Central Park South and on Lexington Avenue at 48th Street. In addition, several very prominent hotels such as the Plaza and St. Regis and Fifth Avenue and the Ritz-Carlton Hotel at 50 Central Park West decided to convert part of their hotel space to residential condominium apartments. Another major property, the Mayflower Hotel at 15 Central Park West, was demolished in 2005 to make way for a new luxury condominium project that quickly became one of the most successful conversions in the city's history. Another major hotel, the Stanhope on Fifth Avenue at 81st Street, was converted to co-operative apartments in 2007.

This 14-story building had 242 hotel rooms and now has 100 condominium apartments consisting of studio, one- and two-bedroom units in addition to several duplex units and the two penthouse apartments. Initial prices ranged from about $744,000 for a 607-square-foot studio apartment on the 10th floor to $3,557,00 for a three-bedroom unit with three-and-a-half baths and 19-foot ceilings on the sixth floor.

One of the penthouses has 3,917 square feet of interior space and 4,028 square feet of exterior space with a wrap-around terrace, four bedrooms, five baths and two fireplaces. The other has 3,414 square feet of interior space and 231 square feet of exterior space with four bedrooms and five baths and a living room with a 25-foot-high, vaulted ceiling with skylights.

Gwathmey Siegel is the architectural firm that designed the sinuously curved apartment tower at Astor Place as well as many academic and institutional buildings and residences. It was one of the "New York Five" or "Whites"-architectural firms that emerged in the 1960s and were known for their Modernistic white buildings.

Yitzchak Tessler and Meyer Chetrit were the developers of this project. Joseph Chetrit was one of the principal buyers of the Sears Tower in Chicago in 2004. The Chetrit Group at the same time also undertook the conversion of the former Empire Hotel at 44 West 63rd Street to residential condominium apartments, but subsequently decided to keep it as a hotel.

Some of the apartments in this project along the avenue will have partial views of Central Park, which is one block to the north.

This location has excellent public transportation and is convenient to many of the country's finest stores, and numerous restaurants. It is very close to Carnegie Hall, which is around the corner on 57th Street at Seventh Avenue and is not far from numerous supermarkets including Whole Foods in the large basement of the Time-Warner Center at Columbus Circle, two blocks to the west.