159 Madison Avenue: Review and Ratings

Review of 159 Madison Avenue by Carter Horsley

The stretch of Madison Avenue between Madison Square Park and 34th Street has undergone various transformations over the years.

In the early part of the 20th Century, it was very elegant as the fabulous tower of Madison Square Garden once marked one of the city's most glamorous sites that attracted some of the city's most prestigious clubs, such as the Colony in the high 20's, and many attractive hotels sprang up. The garden moved uptown to West 50th Street and then south to West 33rd Street, the Colony Club moved Uptown to Park Avenue and many of the ornate hotels were turned into Single Room Occupancy units for people on welfare. A few decades ago, streetwalkers plied their trade in the evening in the 30's.

Now, many of the hotels have been reclaimed for normal hotel use, the streetwalkers are gone, and the renaissance of the Flatiron and Park Avenue South districts in Midtown South have changed perceptions about the desirability of the Murray Hill area, which is just to the north of 34th Street, and much of Midtown South. Major advertisers, publishers and even investment houses have relocated from midtown to the general area and West 32nd Street has become a Ginza-type strip in the late 1990's.

This very handsome, Italian Renaissance-style, 12-story apartment building was built in 1911 and converted to a cooperative in 1988. It has 118 units and is convenient to subways and buses as well as the wonderful Morgan Library a few blocks to the north and the Empire State Building, of course, two blocks away.

The building has a full-time doorman, a live-in superintendent and full-time porters.

There are washers and dryers on every floor and the building has a roof deck.