533 Leonard Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 533 Leonard Street by Carter Horsley

The 19^th Century, red-brick, Horace Greeley School at 533 Leonard Street between Nasau and Driggs Avenues in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, has lost its pitched roof and its six-step-up stoop in its conversion into 13 residential condominiums while gaining glass-and-metal setback wings and a setback roof addition.

The developer is Largo Investments and Robert Toscano is the architect.  

Originally known as PS 59 The Horace Greeley School, the Italianate-style structure was erected between 1886 and 1888.

In 1947, it was sold to the Polish Legion of American Veterans.

It is near McCarren Park.

Bottom Line

The center façade of a red-brick Italianate former school building has been incorporated into a residential building with new, glass-and-metal side and roof additions and many apartments are duplexes with high ceilings and are not too far from McCarren Park.

Description

The older, central part of the building has many arched windows. 

The asymmetrical additions make little contextual effort and a September 24, 2014 article at ny.curbed.com by Hana R. Alberts described the converted building as “engulfed by a dark ‘n’ boxy Transformer.”  Presumably the writer was not referring to the high-tech monstrosities in the “Transformer” movies, but the overall aesthetic impact is not so ominous as much as incongruous.  Refined restorations sometimes make seamless additions, but some purists insist on bold contrasts between old and new.  This scheme is neither bold nor dramatic, but is not as dire as not dramatic as the ny.curbed.com item suggests, although it’s too bad the designers couldn’t incorporate a suggestion of a pitched roof.

The building has a four-space parking lot.

Amenities

The building has a roof deck, a virtual doorman, a package room, a laundry and pets are allowed.

Apartments

All the apartments have outdoor spaces and almost half of them are duplexes.

There are seven apartments on the first floor, six of which are duplexes, four on the second level and two more on the third. 

All have heated floors and some have exposed brick walls and 17-foot-high ceilings.  They all have Bosch washers and dryers.  Kitchens have Miton cabinetry, Carrera marble countertops and Miele appliances.  Bathrooms have Duravit bathtubs and toilets and Marmo Bianco tiles.

Apartment 2D is a two-bedroom unit with 1,,542 square feet, a 32-foot-long great room with double-height ceilings and staircase to a mezzanine level and it has a 100-square-foot terrace facing the street.

Apartment 1F is a two-bedroom unit with a long entry foyer on the first floor past an open kitchen leading to a staircase to the upper level, the 11-foot-wide dining room and two bedrooms.  The upper level has an 18-foot-long living. Room.

Apartment 1C is a two-bedroom duplex unit with an entrance on the upper level that leads to a pass-through kitchen next to a 16-foot-long dining room adjacent to a 14-foot-wide living room that opens onto a large terrace.  The lower level has the bedrooms and a large private yard.