150 Rivington Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 150 Rivington Street by Carter Horsley

This 7-story apartment building at 150 Rivington Street was completed in 2018 by Cogswell Lee Development, which is headed by Arthur R. Stern, on the former site of Streit’s Matzo Factory, a Lower East Side institution since 1925.

It is designed by Gluck + and has 45 condominium apartments.

The factory is relocating to Rockland County, New York.

The factory opened in 1925 and was sold in 2015 and was the subject of a film by Michael Levine, “Streit’s: Matzo and the American Dream,” that premiered at the Film Forum April 20, 2016.

In an April 22, 2016 article in The New York Times, Ronda Kaysen wrote that Mr. Levine said that “People felt a loss deeply on an emotional level,” adding that “People thought they were losing a part of their family.”

Bottom Line

A shimmering, mid-rise, glass apartment building replaces Streit’s Matzo Factory on the Lower East Side.

Description

The building has a very modern appearance with a two-story and a three-story section above the one-story base with different fenestration patterns beneath four penthouses with 12-foot-9-inch ceilings, glass façades, and two outdoor spaces each.

Much of the façade is covered with cast panels that are “patterned after shimmering curtains” that, according to Charles Kaplan, a principal with Gluck +, “looked to bring that vitality into the façade, to make it ‘dance and sing’ with the life around and inside it.’”

The building’s lobby will be decorated with some memorabilia from the factory.  The developer was quoted in the article as stating that “you have to try to preserve at least some link to the past,” adding “that’s ultimately what made the city what it is.”

The building has an entrance marquee and no sidewalk landscaping.

Amenities

The building has a 24-hour lobby attendant, a roof deck, a fitness center, bicycle storage, a superintendent. Porter services, a package room, cold storage, and individual storage for purchase.

Apartments

Apartments have wire-brushed oak flooring and Italian translucent sliding doors by Rimadesio.

Kitchens have Italian cabinetry, Caesarstone countertops, a Smeg range, a Liebherr refrigerators and some units have a wine refrigerator.

Bathrooms have honed Pelle Grigio marble cascades from ceiling to dloor and ash wood vanities.

Apartment C on the second and third floor is a three-bedroom unit with an entry that leads to a 26-foot-long living/dining room with an open kitchen with a pass-through.

Apartments 2D and 3D and 4E, 5E and 6E are two-bedroom units with a long entry hall that leads to 14-foot-wide open-kitchen with a pass-through to the 18-foot-long living/dining room.

Apartment 3H, 4I, 5H and 6H are two-bedroom units with an entry that leads to an open kitchen and the 20-foot-long living/dining room.

Apartment A on the 3^rd through the 6^th floor is a two-bedroom unit with an entry that leads to a 9-foot-wide open kitchen with a pass-through to the 20-foot-long living/dining room.

Apartment C on the 4^th through the 6^th floors is a one-bedroom unit with an entry next to an 11-foot-wide-kitchen with a pass-through that leads to a 20-foot-long living/dining room.