333 East 68th Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 333 East 68th Street by Carter Horsley

This 15-story, red-brick structure is one of the most attractive apartment buildings on the Upper East Side.

Erected in 1928, this mid-block building has a large and very lushly landscaped center entrance courtyard and a 9-story and a 15-story wing, the latter of which is topped by a handsome, octagonal water-tank enclosure with circular openings, or oculi.

A handsome bronze mailbox is on the side of the one of the entrance gate's light posts.

The building is nicely detailed and has multi-paned, arched windows on the third and top floors. It has a canopied, 2-step-up entrance, a one-story rusticated limestone base, a doorman and permits protruding air-conditioners. It has no health club and no balconies and 68 apartments.

It is across the street from St. Catherine's Park, which fronts on First Avenue and occupies half a block, and the Georgian-style, Julia Richman Education Complex, which fronts on Second Avenue. It is adjacent to two other handsome residential buildings, a low-rise, Georgian-style, red-brick building at 345 East 68th Street, and the very large, Art Deco-style, yellow-brick building at 311 East 68th Street, which also features a very large, albeit not as lush, landscaped center entrance court.

This building is very elegant and one of the great surprises to be found on the Upper East Side and it is surprising that its very handsome massing and very generous landscaping has not been imitated. It should be. There are some large residential buildings not too far away and also in the Sutton Place area that also have large gardens, but most of them are raised one-story and are in developments that straddled two sidestreets. Other large "gardens" such as can be found nearby at Manhattan House or Imperial House are walled off from the street.

There is excellent local shopping in the area as well as many restaurants and a nearby movie theater. There is cross-town bus service on 67th Street and a subway station at 67th Street and Lexington Avenue.

Rockefeller University, several hospitals and Sotheby's are a few blocks to the east.