New York City Luxury Condos

Named after the goddess of the hearth, this handsome, 12-story building at 201 West 17th Street, is a condominium with 37 apartments and was converted from a loft building in 2001 by The Corcoran Group and Mark Blau.

The red-brick building, which is named Vesta 17, has a rusticated limestone base, double-height lobby with a glass canopy entrance, a concierge and no more than four apartments per floor, each with their own washer and dryer, large windows and high-speed Internet access. Bathrooms have limestone floors and "rainhead" shower spouts.

It has attractive retail spaces, but no sidewalk landscaping, no garage and no balconies. It is close to the Xavier School.

It has an excellent Chelsea location that has very good local shopping and numerous restaurants. It is close to both the Flatiron and West Village districts and there is good public transportation at 14th Street.

The 17-story residential condominium building at 240 Park Avenue South on the northwest corner at 19^th Street was developed by Linjan Associates, of which Yitzchak Tessler is a principal. 

Gwathmey Siegel was the architect for the building, which was completed in 2009 and is notable for the rounded corner of its base. 

The building, which is also known as 49-55 East 19^th Street, has 51 apartments. 

The 52-story Olympic Tower at 641 Fifth Avenue in Midtown is situated between 51st and 52nd Streets and was developed by Aristotle Onasis. Its 226 apartments are located in the top 29 floors and have large windows that offer expansive views of the Manhattan skyline and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Residences also feature varied layouts, 9-foot-high ceilings, enclosed kitchens and elegant bathrooms.

Olympic Tower amenities include elevator attendants, 24-hour concierge service, a gym, a barber, a hair salon, a bicycle room, a fitness center, and – in the event of a power outage – emergency electric power. It also is close to the shops and restaurants along Fifth Avenue and such cultural attractions as the Museum of Modern Art. 

This very handsome cast-iron structure was erected in 1887 as the Hugh O'Neill Dry Goods Building and is one of the highlights of the city's "Ladies Mile" retail stretch along the Avenue of the Americas south of 23rd Street that flourished at the end of the 19th Century.

Designed by Mortimer C. Merritt, it originally had tall, beehive-style domes atop the almost cylindrical towers at the corners of 20th and 21st Streets. The domes were eventually removed but its conversion to 49 condominium apartments, completed in 2007, included their restoration.

The building's name is emblazoned in relief on its pediment.

It is the oldest and most handsome of the major department store buildings along Ladies' Mile and was complemented in scale and grandeur by the Siegel-Cooper Dry Goods Store at 616-632 Avenue of the Americas, which was designed by DeLemos & Cordes and erected in 1897, and by the Simpson Crawford & Simpson dry goods store at 641 Avenue of the Americas, which was designed by William H. Hume & Son and erected in 1900.

This building has a five-story base topped by a one-story pediment story in the center of the frontage along the avenue.

In an article in The New York Times, Christopher Gray noted that the building originally had four floors and that the fifth story was added in 1895, adding that "in 1906, the O'Neill store merged with Adams Dry Goods, a one-time competitor on the block to the north....But the merged company closed in 1907, as garment-manufacturing firms invaded the side streets and drove out retail patronage."

"By the 1920s all the giant stories had been converted to lofts and manufacturing. A 1940's photograph shows the old O'Neill store occupied by the Central Time Clock Company, a machinery exchange and similar businesses. By that time, the domes had been demolished," Mr. Gray wrote.

The condo conversion by Miki Naftali of Elad Properties included a two-story roof addition and was designed by Cetra/Ruddy and the plan was approved by the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission as the building falls within the Ladies' Mile Historic District, which was created in 1989. The property was acquired by Elad in 2003 for about $37 million.

The building's façade is highly articulated with Corinthian columns and pilasters and the cast-iron façade was painted white to have the appearance of stone.

O'Neill came from Belfast and opened a dry-goods store on Broadway north of Union Square after the Civil War and in 1870 moved his store to its present location, eight years before the elevated train appeared on the avenue. Demolition of the "El" began in 1938.

His new store occupied several modest buildings on the site that he had painted yellow with black lines and brown trimmings, according to Mr. Gray.

The restoration of the domes pleased many preservationists but their large bulbous forms in fact are more quaint than beautiful and the domeless building had a very appealing and modern affect. One could almost compare it to the purity and strength and good design of projects by architect Richard Meier.

The lower three floors of the building have taller and broader windows than those on the higher floors.

The addition of two penthouse floors, setback from the street wall, to the existing building results from a zoning lot merger and easement agreement with the Congregation of Shearith Israel, the owners of the Shearith Israel Cemetery on 21st Street.

The building is across the avenue from the landmarked Church of the Holy Communion complex, which is occupied by a nightclub.

This neighborhood is convenient to Greenwich Village, Chelsea, and the Flatiron District and abounds in restaurants. The area has undergone significant upgrading and several new residential towers have sprouted above 23rd Street in the former flower district along the avenue.

The area has good public transportation.

Place 57 at 207 East 57th Street sits at the intersection of Midtown and the Upper East Side.

Completed around 2006, Place 57 is 36 stories high and contains 68 apartments. Many units offer sweeping views of the Manhattan cityscape and Central Park, while all feature mahogany floors, walk-in closets, individual safes and washers and dryers; kitchens have modern, premium appliances and master bathrooms are outfitted with whirlpool tubs and separate shower stalls. What’s more, there are, at most, two apartments – ranging from two to three bedrooms – per floor.

Place 57 amenities include an attended lobby, a fitness center, a children’s playroom, a residents’ lounge, individual storage units and 24-hour concierge service provided by Quintessentially. 207 East 57th Street is situated between Third and Second Avenues and is near Central Park and the shops and restaurants along Madison Avenue.

As the only residential building located within the Lincoln Center of the Performing Arts complex, 3 Lincoln Center is a mixed-use, 60-story tower that houses Lincoln Center offices in its lower floors and 347 apartments on its upper floors.

It has two entrances and its western location produces sweeping views of the Hudson River and the skylines of Manhattan and New Jersey. 3 Lincoln Center residences have windowed chef’s kitchens equipped with top-of-the-line appliances, granite floors and countertops. Bathrooms are appointed in luxurious marble and are outfitted with topnotch fixtures and finishes.

Amenities at 3 Lincoln Center include doorman and concierge service available 24-hours a day and a full-service parking garage on-site. It also has a private, state-of-the-art health club, the Center Club, which features a 60-foot swimming pool, a sauna, a steam room and aerobic exercise rooms.

This very handsome tower commands a splendid site overlooking, to the east, Manhattan Square and the American Museum of Natural History in the foreground, and Central Park just beyond.

More importantly, from a civic standpoint, this building significantly reinforced the upgrading of Columbus Avenue, and gave the Upper West Side and important and attractive, new (unofficial) landmark.

The tower is in context only with the great towers of Central Park West, and its site fits gracefully into the Upper West Side skyline, as seen from the east. It is also the most prominent structure on Columbus Avenue, an avenue that greatly needed such a focus north of 68th Street.

The slender 31-story spire, which was completed in 1985, has quite a complex geometry at its top, yet it is well contained and conservative. Its architect, Frank Williams, designed a somewhat similar, but taller tower, the Belaire at 524 East 72nd Street, a few years later.

The project was one of several pioneering developments undertaken by William Zeckendorf Jr., and World-Wide Realty in the early 1980's. The building has 154 condominium apartments and handsome retail space.

Belvedere Castle, which overlooks Turtle Pond and the Shakespeare in the Park Theater in Central Park, is a short walk inside Central Park from 81st Street.

There is excellent public transportation nearby and numerous restaurants and boutiques.

Riverhouse at 1 River Terrace is located in Battery Park City.

The 32-story Riverhouse, which opened in 2008, achieved gold LEED certification status. The 264, one- to five-bedroom units have twice-filtered air and water, year-round humidity control, low pollution emitting paints, carpets and acoustical treatments and triple-glazed windows. The floors are eco-friendly bamboo and the kitchen and bathroom cabinets are made of sustainable teak.

Amenities include a 50-foot aqua-tile lap pool with a pool house, a fitness center with a yoga studio, the Treehouse Lounge, a Media Café with an adjacent billiard room, a landscaped roof garden with a lounge and the Lighthouse children’s playroom. Additionally, residents have access to concierge service, attended parking, on-site bicycle storage and a dog spa.

Ariel West is one of two tall residential condominium towers erected in 2007 by the Extell Development Company across from one another on Broadway between 99th and 100th Streets.

It is a 31-story tower with 73 apartments at 2633 Broadway and it was designed by Cook & Fox. It has a few setbacks and a slab form. It is a mid-block site that was formerly occupied by a Gristede s store that collapsed during demolition injuring several pedestrians.

It is across Broadway from Ariel East, which is 37 stories and has 64 apartments and was designed by Cetra/Ruddy. It has 7 setbacks facing Broadway and is distinguished by its reflective-glass façade with red "piping" accents.

Extell names many of its projects after stars.

The two towers, which were completed in 2007, have significantly altered the northern skyline of the Upper West Side that heretofore has been dominated by the Riverside Church at 120th Street and Riverside Drive, the Master Apartments on Riverside Drive at 103rd Street and the Columbia Apartments at 275 West 96th Street.

The two Extell towers created considerable controversy and led to a rezoning of 51 blocks between 96th and 110th Streets where building heights were limited to 145 feet on Broadway and the transfer of air rights from side-streets was forbidden.

A March 5, 2006 article by William Newman in The New York Times said that Extell bought 19,148 square feet of development rights for Ariel West in April, 2006 from the owners of four townhouses on 99th Street west of Broadway.

The article said that "the owners' lawyer, Gary R. Tarnoff, said he was able to get Extell to agree to several concessions that benefited his clients, including an agreement that the developer would try to place a garage entrance away from their property," adding that "they were paid a total of $2.72 million." The price paid by Extell per square foot of development rights ranged from $132 to $148 and two of the townhouse owners retained 500 square feet of air rights for possible later additions to their houses.

A May 15, 2011 article by Vivian S. Toy in The New York Times reported condominum apartment owners in the building voted 47 to 3 to ban smoking inside the apartments. There are 68 owners in total; 46 votes constituted the supermajority required to change the bylaws.

Even smokers who moved into the building before the ban must abide by it. The building is one of the first in the city to approve such an extensive ban. (Several rental buildings introduced bans in 2010, but established tenants who smoked were not affected.)

"Even though people bought into this building thinking they could smoke," said Gideon Stein, the president of the condo board at Ariel West, "people do not have a constitutional right to smoke," the article said.

"That said, the three-year-old building is not about to become a police state. Enforcement will be complaint-driven, and no one will be knocking on doors or sniffing out smokers. Smoking could, however, quickly become an extremely expensive habit, since the first complaint will draw a $150 fine, and the fine for each succeeding complaint will increase by $150," the article said.

"The idea is obviously a controversial one," said Bruce Littlefield, who lives in a two-bedroom apartment in the building and who voted for the ban, "because people's domain is their home, and they certainly should be able to enjoy what they do within the walls of their home. But sometimes what people do seeps outside their walls and into other people's environment, and it becomes a quality-of-life issue....Smokers know not to ask anymore, 'Can I smoke in your house?' That's so last decade," the article continued.

The fact that the Ariel West is made up mainly of family-sized apartments with three or more bedrooms, and that it has more than 100 children under 16, probably helped make the ban easier to pass. Extell also developed the Orion at 350 West 42nd Street and the former Stanhope Hotel at 985 Fifth Avenue and Altair 18 and Altair 20, condo conversions in Chelsea at 32 West 18th Street and 15 West 20th Street, respectively. Gary Barnett, a principal of Extell, was a principal in the recent purchase of a large property at the southern end of Riverside South, the huge development by Donald Trump.

Located at 10 West Street in Battery Park City, the Residences at the Ritz-Carlton opened in November 2001.

It contains 122 apartments and 311 Ritz-Carlton hotel rooms. Units - which quickly sold out when they were first put on the market - feature large windows, modern kitchens and master bathrooms with premium fixtures. Its spacious residences are also distinguished by their varied floor plans. Some apartments boast such impressive touches as motorized window shade systems and marble-lined foyers.

Residents are treated to the same perks and services as hotel guests and have access to such amenities as a full-time doorman, concierge service, an elevator attendant, central air conditioning, a full-service garage, a health club, a garden, a pool, a roof deck, a business center, a children’s playroom, valet parking and a private lounge.

10 West Street overlooks the harbor and the Statue of Liberty. The Bowling Green subway station is just a few blocks away.

Designed by the world-renowned architect Robert A. M. Stern, the Brompton at 205 East 85^th Street is located in the Upper East Side.

The Brompton was completed in 2009, is a Gothic-inspired and has generously sized residences and elegant details. Ranging from studios to townhouses, the 166 Brompton apartments have elegant kitchens featuring maple cabinetry and state-of-the-art appliances; master bathrooms are equipped with vanities with double sinks, six-foot soaking tubs and glass and marble shower stalls. Some apartments have fireplaces and Juliet balconies, while the duplex Townhouses have elevators. All residences have oversized windows, washers and dryers, entry foyers and walk-in closets.

The Brompton's hotel-style amenities include a personal assistant to handle everything from making restaurant reservations and spa appointments to arranging pet and child care. There is a landscaped interior courtyard for residents and ownership comes with a membership to the adjoining Equinox Fitness Club, which has a private lounge for Brompton residents and a full-service spa along with premium fitness equipment.

The residential Yorkville neighborhood is near Carl Schurz Park, the jogging path along the East River, public transportation and excellent local shops.

Soaring 56 floors above the city and completed in 2004, 425 Fifth Avenue was designed by Michael Graves.

It contains 81 residences on its top 27 floors and has four floors of offices, two floors of retail space and 16 floors of extended stay residences managed by the Envoy Club. 425 Fifth Avenue apartments are modern and feature wood floors, tall windows, spacious living rooms, large galleries and some terraces. Kitchens have cherry wood cabinetry, black granite countertops and topnotch stainless steel appliances. Bathrooms feature marble and Italian tiles, deep soaking tubs and glass enclosed shower stalls. Units also have panoramic views of the city, the Empire State Building, Bryant Park and the rivers.

Amenities include the Fifth Avenue Club, which has a Techno Gym Fitness Center, an indoor pool, a wraparound sun terrace, a steam room, a sauna and treatment rooms. There is also a private cinema screening room, a resident social lounge, a business and conference center, a children’s playroom and a 24-hour concierge and doorman. 425 Fifth Avenue is located close to numerous subway lines, such retail stores as Lord and Taylor and the main branch of the New York Public Library.

This plain, 25-story apartment building at 301 West 53^rd Street on the northwest corner at Eighth Avenue was assembled by Harry Horwitz and erected in 1980.

It subsequently was known as the Encore and more recently as The Metro and has been owned by Ruby Schron, Extell Development, Westbrook Capital and most recently by HFZ Capital Group, which is headed by Ziel Feldman. HFZ is converting it to 252 condominiums and has renamed it Fifty Third and Eighth.

It was designed by Liebman & Liebman and Schuman Lichtenstein & Claman.

BP Architects is designing the conversion, Terrain NYC is the landscape architect and ASH NYC is responsible for the furnishings.

505 Greenwich Street is located in SoHo.

The glass-front 505 Greenwich Street was constructed in 2004 and has 104 units, all of which feature oversized windows. Kitchens and bathrooms are equipped with premium appliances and fixtures and unique and generous layouts are optimal for families, couples and young professionals.

Amenities are topnotch and varied, as residents have access to a full-time concierge, a resident superintendent, a fitness center with cardiovascular and weight training equipment and a pet spa. Apartments also have individual storage spaces.

It is located near the nexus of TriBeCa, SoHo and the West Village. The Canal Street subway station is also nearby.