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About 1 Beekman Place
The most prestigious Beekman Place apartment building is, appropriately, One Beekman Place, which was designed by Sloan & Robertson and Corbett, Harrison & MacMurray and completed in 1929.
While it presents a pleasant and handsome west facade, it gives no hint of the complex and very impressive facade facing the East River. There, it presents an asymmetrical mass of balconies and bay windows that is not beautiful but as awesome as any castle's battlements. It would soon be followed by another residential colossus, the River House, a few blocks to the north along the river and both originally had waterfront facilities until the construction of the FDR Drive. At the time of their construction, the area still contained many tenements and a famous play that was later made into a movie, "Dead End," used the juxtaposition of a super luxury apartment tower with low-income buildings nearby at such a location to evocatively contrast their different worlds and values.
Beekman Place is now filled with other apartment buildings and many attractive townhouses and is considered one of the city's most desirable enclaves because of its quiet, river views and convenience to midtown. Two decades after it was built, the United Nations complex was completed and this building had very impressive views of it from its south facade until the subsequent construction of the large twin-towered luxury apartment and office building known as 860 and 870 United Nations Plaza.
In their book, "New York 1930, Architecture and Urbanism Between The Two World Wars," (Rizzoli International, 1987), Robert A. M. Stern, Gregory Gilmartin and Thomas Mellins noted that this building's "severely detailed exterior sheltered lavishly planned duplex suites with loggias and balconies jutting out over the river." "An elaborate club facility that included an indoor swimming pool occupied the lower floors and opened onto a waterfront terrace," they added.
The 16-story structure was built as a cooperative in 1929 and has 42 apartments.
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