15 West 12th Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 15 West 12th Street by Carter Horsley

Several blocks, including this one, just to the west off Lower Fifth are considered among the most beautiful and desirable in the city.

They have an eclectic and charming mix of handsome townhouses, some early apartment buildings and an elegance not rivaled elsewhere downtown and only on a few blocks uptown.

West 12th Street is anchored by the very dignified and nobly fenced garden of the First Presbyterian Church, designed by Joseph C. Wells in 1846, at Fifth Avenue on the south side and the imposing MacMillan Publishing Building on the north side of the avenue. The west end of the block is anchored by the Art Deco-style main building of the New School for Social Research. P. S. 41, one of the city's finest public schools is just across the avenue of the Americas at 11th Street, one block up from the great landmark Jefferson Market Courthouse library.

This neighborhood is exceeding desirable as it is served by excellent public transportation, numerous religious institutions and abounds in many good restaurants and famous food stores and plentiful neighborhood retail services. Directly across Fifth Avenue at No. 43 is a great apartment building designed by Stanford White and around the corner a block to the south on the avenue is the Ascension Episcopal Church with its own large corner fenced garden. The ambiance here has few rivals in the city and is very lively because of the Village, the presence of New York University nearby and the proximity to the very trendy Union Square, Flatiron and Chelsea districts.

This attractive, 13-story, redbrick building was erected in 1954 and converted to a cooperative in 1984. It has 75 apartments, broad windows, some balconies and a doorman. The building makes little attempt to reflect its surroundings, and was built almost a decade before the city enacted its Landmarks Preservation Commission that would eventually create an historic district for Greenwich Village. It is just down the street from Butterfield House at 37 West 12th Street, one of the city's handsomest modern apartment buildings that was erected in 1963.

Carter B. Horsley