Two Sixty Five, 265 East 66th Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 265 East 66th Street by Carter Horsley

One of the city's few sleekly modern apartment buildings, this large, black-glass tower at 265 East 66^th Street on the northeast corner at Second Avenue has rounded corners and is striking and quite dramatic.

The well-proportioned, 47-story tower, which has no setbacks, was erected in 1979 and designed by Gruzen & Partners for Sheldon Solow, who also developed the sloping skyscraper at 9 West 57th Street and the tall apartment tower at One East River Place at 525 East 72nd Street.

It has 301 rental apartments.

As part of this development, Solow also erected several townhouses, clad in pink granite and designed by Eli Attia, to the west of the tower on 67th Street that were eventually converted to rentals.

Bottom Line

A major visual landmark on the Upper East Side, this very handsome rental tower has a rooftop health club with a skylit pool, a garage and a bicycle room.

Description

Described by Elliot Willensky and Norval White as "tall, suave...the equivalent in architectural terms...of the gray flannel suit" in their fine book, "The A.I.A. Guide to New York City, Third Edition," (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988), this tower significantly upgraded the Second Avenue corridor and reinforced the nearby emerging cluster of luxury residential towers along Third Avenue.

Amenities

The tower, which is setback in a plaza with a driveway at 265 East 66th Street, has a rooftop health club and skylit pool, a 24-hour doorman and concierge and a 24-hour attended garage. The building has video security and valet service and a bicycle room.

There is a private drive-through with porte-corchere lobby.

Apartments

There are seven apartments a floor, four of which have very large “curved” corner windows.  These windows are not truly curved but consist of several angled glass panels.

The layouts have living rooms with sweeping vistas at the curved corners. The large windows extend from the ceiling to the floor but are placed behind low radiator units that those who suffer from vertigo will appreciate. Large circular columns are placed a bit uncomfortably close to the windows in many of the apartments.

Apartments have granite kitchen with cherry wood cabinets, and mirrored backsplashes.

They have polished white-oak flooring, individual room temperature controls, and solar panel windows with custom Levelor window treatments.

Apartment 14C is a two-bedroom unit with an 11-foot-long entry foyer leading to a 27-foot-long living room with a 10-part corner window and a 13-foot-long dining area next to a 12-foot-long enclosed kitchen.

Apartment 34F is a two-bedroom unit with a 14-foot-long entry foyer leading to a 29-foot-long living room with a 10-part corner window and a 20-foot-long dining area adjacent to a 13-foot-long kitchen.

Apartment 18A is a one-bedroom unit with an 8-foot-wide entry foyer that leads to a 23-foot-long living room with an 8-foot-square dining area next to an enclosed 7-foot-square kitchen.

Apartment 25B is a one-bedroom unit with a 12-foot-long entry foyer that leads to a 24-foot-long living room with a 10-part corner window and a 12-foot-long dining area next to an 8-foot-long kitchen.

Most of the three-story townhouses have a 9-foot-long entry foyer that leads up a few stairs to a 21-foot-long living room overlooking a 32-foot-long garden and next to a 16-foot-long dining room with staircase adjacent to a 12-foot-long kitchen on the main floor and two bedrooms on the second floor and a master bedroom and 16-foot-long sitting room/office on the third floor.

History

Willensky and White also noted in their book that "A welcome subtlety is its developer's decision not to employ an ostentatious name, rare for most recent luxury apartment towers."

While few in number, Solow's impressive projects have never been routine and have often raised the industry's postwar standards.

Location

The tower, which also has the addresses of 1261 Second Avenue and 244 East 67th Street, is convenient to cross-town buses and a subway station is nearby at 68th Street and Lexington Avenue.