39 East 79th Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 39 East 79th Street by Carter Horsley

This very distinguished and very handsome, red-brick, 14-story cooperative apartment house was built in 1926. Like several other pre-war buildings on this very attractive block, it has large apartments and very few of them. 

The 21-unit building is just to the west of the attractive New York Society Library. 

The building was designed by Kenneth Murchison for Emily Post, the etiquette expert. 

Bottom Line

A very impressive, pre-war building at a prime Upper East Side location created by Emily Post for her Social Register friends, although a 1999 article in The New York Times by Christopher Gray said that the building’s Social Register population had fallen to about 20 percent. 

It is close to the culinary sites of Sant Ambroeus and Eat and has many views of Central Park because of the low-rise mansions on the south side of 79^th Street west of Madison Avenue.

Description

The building has a three-story limestone base, the first story of which is rusticated. 

It has sidewalk landscaping and a canopied entrance with very nice bronze doors flanked by very handsome and large bronze sconces. 

 The top three floors have attractive limestone decoration. 

The 12^th and 13^th floors have double-height, multi-paned windows at the west end of the building and the 12-th floor has four tall arched windows in the center of the façade above a very handsome ornamental balcony. 

The red-brick shaft of the building has quoins at its corners. 

The building has inconsistent fenestration and a protruding air-conditioner. 

Amenities

The building has wood-burning fireplaces, a doorman and sidewalk landscaping, but not roof deck and no health club.

Apartments

Apartment 3A has a 12-foot-long entry gallery that opens onto a 24-foot-long living/dining room with a fireplace adjacent to an enclosed 12-foot-long kitchen.  The two-bedroom unit also has a 10-foot-long staff room.

Apartment 11B has a vestibule that leads to a long gallery that opens onto a 25-foot-long corner living room with wood-burning fireplace that opens onto a 18-foot-long library adjacent to an office.  The three-bedroom unit also has an 18-foot-long enclosed dining room next to a 18-foot-long enclosed kitchen. 

Apartment 12B is a three-bedroom unit that has a 37-foot-long foyer that opens into a 27-foot-long corner living room with a wood-burning fireplace next to a 15-foot-long dining room that connects via a long hall to a 15-foot-long kitchen.

Location

The building's location is convenient to the Metropolitan Museum to the north and the Whitney Museum of American Art to the south and there are many boutiques and restaurants nearby. 

There is good cross-town bus service, but also considerable traffic at this location, and the nearest subway station is not too far away at 77th Street and Lexington Avenue near Lenox Hill Hospital.