Carter's Review

This very handsome pre-war building at 752 West End Avenue on the southeast corner at 97^th Street opened in 1931 as the Paris Hotel and is notable for the many "battlements" on its three levels of terraces near its top.

The 24-story building opened with 900 hotel rooms.  It was converted to 179 rental apartments in the 1980s and is now a condominium project.

The architect of the hotel was Architects Design Group and Samuel Gross. (It has also been attributed to Sugarman & Berger, probably because of its similarity in massing to the Master Apartments not far away on Riverside Drive.)

The website said that according to The New York Times the hotel was built by the Silverman Freda Construction Corporation and that the Guardian Life Insurance Company bought it at a foreclosure auction in 1933 and sold it the next year to the Risap Corporation (James A. Knott, president)."  It also said that Henry Mandel said he converted it into "middle class housing" and that he sold it in March 1981 to Amos Kaminsky's AFA Asset Services Inc., and that The New York Post reported that the building was sold September 28, 2007 to Westbrook Partners for $85,787,799.

According to an June 18, 2013 article at therealdeal.com by Zachary Kussin, David Bistricer’s Clipper Equity and Rieder Holdings bought the property for $72 million in 2010 and sold in 2013 for $120 million and the “buyer appears to be the Miami-based developer Crescent Heights, according to property records."

Bistricer and Rieder filed plans for a $148 million conversion of the building to a condominium in 2012, according to the article.  The plans were approved.

Bottom Line

An original brochure for the building noted that “its 24 stories make it the highest building on West End Avenue and give it a magnificent view of the Hudson and the picturesque Palisades.”

Description

The red-brick building is the tallest on West End Avenue.  Its original brochure noted that “the exterior features the new color development of graduated colors changing from blackish red brick at the base to a sunlight yellow at the top.”

The lobby has pink marble walls.

Amenities

The building has a health club with a swimming pool, a 24-hour attended lobby, and a live-in superintendent.

The building also has a rooftop solarium and laundries on each floor.

Apartments

Apartments have GE stainless steel kitchen appliances and granite kitchen countertops.

Apartments have beamed ceiled, thermopane windows and many units have windowed kitchens and baths and separate dining areas. 

Apartment 21F is a one-bedroom unit with 829 square feet of interior space and 778 square feet of exterior space.

Apartment D5 is a one-bedroom duplex unit with 830 square feet of interior space and 353 square feet of exterior space overlooking West End Avenue.

Apartment A on the 5^th. 6^th, 11^th, 14^th, 15^th and 19^th floors is a one-bedroom unit with 915 square feet of interior space.

Apartment A on the 22^nd floor is a one-bedroom unit with a large entry foyer and a long kitchen and a total of 1,012 square feet of interior space.

Apartment K on the 3^rd, 5^th, 7^th, 8^th, 9^th, 11^th, 14^th, 16^th. 17^th and 18^th floors is a one-bedroom unit with 493 square feet of interior space.

History

At the website www.nostradamus.net/McCarthy/hotelparis.htm, Peter Selgin submitted a comment January 20, 1967 that he had stayed there with his father "in the sixties," adding that he "loved the hotel."  "I have a distinct memory of the lobby, and of the small attached restaurant, the small rooms and florid hallway carpeting.  I'm a fiction writer, and a description of the hotel has wormed its way into a recent story: 'At the hotel where my papa and I slept, a black woman with fire engine red hair let me man the elevator controls.  At each floor the elevator's caged doors opened to different hallway carpeting, with each pattern a teeming city unto itself, arabesques of bright color that seemed to mirror the thrilling chaos outdoors.'"

Another post, "Tink," recalled living in the building in 1980 when the area "was still a bit of a 'sketchy' area at the time, but, hey, I was in my early 30s and working at Atlantic Records, so all as 'cool.'  I can remember a bodega on the corner of WEA and 96th (roaches all over the place, no one spoke English, but late at night when you needed cigs, who cared).  There was an original GAP on the corner of 96th and Broadway with a Latin club upstairs where Tito Puente would often play, and a restaurant named The Library on Broadway (95-94th).  It had tons of old books on the walls and was a great place to brunch by oneself...."

The website, which is cached at google.com noted that “in the 60s and 70s, the glory days were long pasts but the pool, solarium and spacious lobby (with mezzanine) remained,” adding that “a gentle seediness hung over the place, much like the many other residential hotels typical of the neighborhood.”

“In its last years, the Paris started attracting busloads of tourist on cheap package tours, like hostel.  The prostitutes came next, along with the smell of urine in the elevators.  The Paris had become little better than an SRO (“single room occupancy” dwelling) or welfare hotel.  By the 80s, it had been closed, renovated and turned into luxury rentals,’ it continued.

At one point the hotel was owned by the Knott hotel chain of which S. George Zauderer was a principal shareholder.  Mr. Zauderer also was involved in the ownership of the Barbizon Hotel for Women and the Ambassador Hotel in New York and the Ambassador East in Chicago.  His daughter, Cheray, married Peter Duchin, the bandleader, and her younger sister, Pamela, married Robert Sakowitz, a real estate entrepreneur in Texas.

Location

It is two blocks from a major subway station and a block from cross-town bus service.