Carnegie Hill Place, 1500 Lexington Avenue: Review and Ratings

Review of 1500 Lexington Avenue by Carter Horsley

This very attractive, 22-story rental apartment building at 1500 Lexington Avenue on the southwest corner at 97^th Street in East Harlem is part of a three-building complex known as Carnegie Hill Place.

The other buildings in this group include 1501 Lexington Avenue, a 12-story rental building on the southeast corner at 97^th Street, and 1510 Lexington Avenue, an 18-story rental building on the northwest corner at 98^th Street.

They are a block north of a subway station and cross-town bus service and were developed by the Kenbar Group, of which Cornelius E. Sigety and Kinne S. Yon are principals.

This building was erected in 2002 and has 211 apartments, of which 20 percent are "affordable."

Designed by Schuman Lichtenstein Claman & Efron, this building rises 22 stories at its southern end on the avenue, 17 stories along the rest of the avenue and 8 stories on 97th Street.

It has 17,500 square feet of retail space.

The building used unused development rights from the nearby St. Francis de Sales Roman Catholic Church to erect this building taller than zoning permitted.

Bottom Line

A handsome rental building that is one of three that comprise Carnegie Hill Place in East Harlem at Lexington Avenue and 97^th Street erected by the Sigety famly.

Description

The building has broad, grooved piers, corner windows, an entrance marquee, light sconces, and discrete air-conditioners.

Amenities

The building has a 24-hour concierge, a doorman, a live-in superintendent, a gym, a roof garden, a bicycle room, valet parking for a fee, a residents’ lounge and a laundry.

Apartments

Kitchens have granite countertops and backsplashes, halogen lighting, and General Electric appliances,

Bathrooms have tri-view medicine cabinets.

Some apartments have terraces.

Apartment 8A is a two-bedroom unit with an entry foyer leads past a pass-through kitchen to a 20-foot-long living room with a 23-foot-wide terrace.

Apartment 10H is a one-bedroom unit with an entry next to an open, pass-through kitchen and a 9-foot-long den that leads lead to an 18-foot-long living area with an 8-foot-long alcove.

Apartment 8Q is a studio with a 15-foot-long living area and a windowed open kitchen.

History

A November 19, 1999 article by Rachelle Gabardine in The New York Times recalled the history of the building’s developers:

“The Sigety family, which owns and operates the Florence Nightingale Health Center on Third Avenue and 97^th Street, has owned the development sites between 96^th and 98^th Streets since in the 1970s.  A decade earlier, the family patriarch, who is now retired, began buying properties in the neighborhood to redevelop them into nursing homes.  While the elder Mr. Sigety built a pair of nursing homes, both operated under the Florence Nightingale name on two of the properties in the mid-60’s and 70’s, only the one on 97^th Street, constructed in 1975, remains.  In 1987, Charles Sigety, according to his son Cornelius, removed the older nursing home, on 96^th Street between Third and Lexington Avenues, from the state-subsidized system and sold the building to the Related Companies, a Manhattan developer, who razed it to make way for the Monterey. Over the years, state health officials repeatedly found that the home was not meeting quality health case standards, according to the State Health Department.  With the favorable response to the Monterey, Cornelius Sigety said he and his four siblings took over control of the three development sites from their father, decided to build housing on them, but by the early 1990’s, the housing market had flattened.  It also took three years to get the sites rezoned, which he said was necessary to make the projects economically viable….Though the rezoning was granted in 1997 by the City Council and approved by Community Board 11, it drew opposition from residents and members of local housing organizations, including tenants of Charles Sigety, who over the years accused him of trying to drive them out so that he could demolish the buildings and develop the land.  The older Mr. Sigety is not involved with the housing projects and is no longer part of the operation of the existing nursing home, Cornelius Sigety said.”

A November 21, 1975 article in The New York Times by John Hess noted that “The Federal Government yesterday won a $1 million settlement of a Medicare overpayment claim agaist Charles E. Sigety, owner of the Florence Nightingale Nursing Home.”  The article said that Mr. Sigety “is an influential Republican and former deputy state attorney general and housing official.

An August 9, 2014 paid notice in The Times on the occasion of Mr. Sigety’s death noted that he had served in the Eisenhower Administration as Deputy Commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration and later was the head of the New York State Housing Finance Agency.