One of the city s largest apartment buildings with about 845 units, the Sheffield at 322 West 57th Street, was erected as a rental apartment building in 1978 by Rose Associates and for many years was a lonely high-rise pioneer in the northwest corner of midtown.

When it was erected, this very big apartment tower was in something of a no-man's land. Although its immediate surroundings were not unattractive this neighborhood left much to be desired in terms of liveliness, amenities and urban grace.

The headquarters of Channel 13 were nearby but so were automobile salesrooms, the oppressive and unattractive New York Coliseum, the city's former convention center, and Eighth Avenue was the city's preeminent boulevard of porn.

A generation later, however, this location is one of the most vibrant in the city.

William Zeckendorf Jr. erected the very impressive green Central Park Place apartment tower on the northwest corner at Eighth Avenue and also began the transformation of the avenue with the very major World Wide Plaza development several blocks to the south.

The Coliseum site was redeveloped into the twin-towered Time-Warner Center. The Lincoln Center area blossomed with many major luxury apartment towers. Donald Trump rebuilt the former Gulf & Western Building on Columbus Circle into another of his glitzy and successful mixed-use skyscrapers and also began construction on his huge residential complex along the Hudson River to the west.

To the east, three gigantic skyscrapers - Metropolitan Tower and Carnegie Hall Tower and 57th Street and CitySpire on 56th Street - and a host of "theme" restaurants such as Planet Hollywood, the Hard Rock Cafe, the Harley Davidson Cafe and Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde began to shift the epicenter of Manhattan to the west, a move greatly reinforced by the amazing renaissance of Times Square in the late 1990's.

In 2005 the Hearst Tower, distinguished by its stainless-steel criss-cross fa??ade with jagged corners, designed by Sir Norman Foster was topped out immediately to the west of this tower. Despite its bulk, it partially blocked the views of only about 5 percent of the units in the Sheffield.

As a result, the Sheffield's location has changed from marginally attractive to very desirable.

The 50-story, brown-brick building has a driveway that runs from 57th to 56th Street, a large plaza and overlooks the landscaped gardens of the very handsome Park Vendome apartment complex just to its west that fronts on both 57th and 56th Streets.

The Sheffield, which was designed by Emery Roth & Sons, has a double-height lobby with a concierge, a laundry on every floor, valet service, a health club with swimming pool, a rooftop paddle tennis court and a 345-car garage. The building also has about 109,000 square feet of office space and some retail space.

In 2005, it was sold by Rose Associates to Swig Burris Equities, YL Real Estate Developers and S & H Equities for $418 million for conversion to a condominium.

The conversion, however, did not go smoothly and at one point Yair Levy of YL Real Estate Developers hit Kenneth Swig of Swig Burris Equities with an ice bucket. Litigation bogged the conversion down and on August 6, 2009 Fortress Investment Group bought the complex for $20 million in a foreclosure proceeding.

In the conversion, the number of apartments was reduced to about 600, the brick base of the building was reclad with granite and glass, the lobby has been doubled in size and the granite-clad plaza has a sculpture by Gary Hume, granite tables and chairs and a through-block driveway.

The top two floors of the tower include a fitness center, a spa, a Pilates studio, a landscaped sun deck and glass-walled swimming pool that is open in the summer and enclosed in the winter, a private restaurant, a screening room, a children's playroom and a lounge offering breakfast and evening cocktails.

The apartment d?cor is noticeably light. Floors are Nordic Ash and kitchens have white marble and gold marble.

There is excellent public transportation and good shopping in this area, which is only a few blocks south of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and also only two blocks from Central Park.