About Longacre House, 305 West 50th Street
This rental apartment tower was developed by The Macklowe Organization and completed in 1998.
It is across 50th Street from the full-block development known as World Wide Plaza that contains a major office tower, a cineplex, and several residential buildings on the former site of Madison Square Garden. The World Wide Plaza complex, completed about a decade earlier than this building, opened the way for the redevelopment of this once seedy stretch of Eighth Avenue.
This building is on the same cross-street as Rockefeller Center, Saks Fifth Avenue and St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Cathedral and borders on the theater district and the northern fringes of Times Square.
The 26-story building, which is called Longacre House, has 293 apartments. It has a health club, a garage, a doorman, a private garden, a recreation room, a sundeck, valet service and it allows pets.
The building, which is located at 305 West 50th Street and is also known as 831 Eighth Avenue, has many corner windows and balconies.
It was designed by Schuman Lichtenstein Claman & Efron.
Public transportation is excellent.
A September 25, 1998 article in The New York Times by Rachelle Garbarine said that Longacre House occupies the site of a former parking lot that was once home to tenements and an X-rated movie house. The article quoted Mr. Macklowe as stated that he became involved with the project because it is an excellent location in a neighborhood that is coming up, a neighborhood in transition.
Apartments range in size from about 550 to 1,160 square feet and initially rents ranged from about $2,095 to $4,250 and penthouse units with terraces rented for about $5,750.
The building has a rose and beige colored brick faade dotted by brick clusters positioned at 45-degree angles, with those at the base topped by lanterns, according to Ms. Garbarine, who also noted that even the smallest studio units have sleeping alcoves and all apartments have 8-foot-8-inch ceilings.
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