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About Madison Green, 5 East 22nd Street
Commanding one of the city's most dramatic sites at the south end of Madison Square Park at the intersection of Broadway and 23rd Street, Madison Green offers spectacular views, superb access to public transportation and a location at the epicenter of the chic and trendy Flatiron district.
The 424-unit condominium was originally planned as a rental by the developer, Rose Associates, but the project had difficulty at the time obtaining permanent long-term financing as the area at the time was not considered prime.
There are 44 different apartment layouts, most apartments have balconies and there are several duplex penthouses.
The building, which has a concierge, a doorman, a private club with fireplace, a physical fitness room, and a garage, was designed by Philip Birnbaum.
Other amenities include a laundry room on each floor, a cash machine in the lobby, 24-hour video rentals, a teenage recreation room, and valet service.
David Kenneth Specter designed the public spaces that are broad and quite attractive.
The building's design is boxy and bulky and fairly conventional. One wonders if a reflective-glass façade was ever considered as it might have been the best possible site in the city for such a treatment, given the architectural glories that surround it and the park: the Flatiron Building and the glorious buildings of the Metropolitan and New York life insurance companies.
In their great book, "New York 2000, Architecture and Urbanism Between the Bicentennial and the Millennium," Robert A. M. Stern, David Fishman and Jacob Tilove wrote that the building was "of formidable bulk that confronted the park and its public with a meanly detailed light brown brick facade, monotonous stacks of balconies, and boxy massing."
The site was the scene in October, 1966, of the Fire Department's worst disaster up to that time when a floor of a drugstore collapsed in a five-alarm fire that engulfed three buildings and 12 men died.
The site eventually was owned by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company but it could not find any buyer for more than 10 years.
The 31-story building was completed in 1982.
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