This 25-story tower was one of the first apartment towers to experiment with a sunken retail plaza. The plaza actually fronts on Third Avenue where it takes up about half the frontage in the middle of the block between 79th and 80th Streets. Like most sunken plazas in the city with the exception of the famous one at Rockefeller Center that inspired them all, it has not been terribly successful either commercially or urbanistically. Nevertheless, in this fairly congested area the considerable extra open space was not without its merits and the sidewalk trees in front of it have flourished more because of the extra space. The 147-unit building was converted to a cooperative in 1986. A few years after it was built, this section of Third Avenue began to become very popular with many nice and trendy restaurants and a general upgrading of retail. Indeed, subsequent construction in the area, the continued gentrification and its quiet, midblock location have made it one of the most desirable in the city.