Plans to convert the rental apartment building at 36 Gramercy Park East to a residential condominium building were filed last month.

The building is owned by Mann Realty Services, a co-owner of the Apthorp apartment building on the southwest corner of Broadway and 79th Street.

An offering plan, known as a "red herring," was sent to the building's tenants December 26. According to an article in today's edition of therealdeal.com, it indicated that the 53 apartments are being offered for sale at an average price of $2,448 a square foot.

"The most expensive apartment, a 2,078-square-foot, three-bedroom on the ninth floor facing the gated park. That apartment is rent-controlled and has been priced at $6,545,700, or about $3,150 a square foot," the article said, adding that "the least expensive, a 323-square-foot studio at the back of the building, has been priced at $484,500, or roughly $1,500 a square foot."

The building was erected in 1909 with 24 apartments but over the years many were subdivided. It was designed by James Riely Gordon for John E. Olsen as a co-op. It was converted to a rental in the 1940s.

In an October 24, 2004 article in The New York Times, Christopher Gray described the building's exterior as "a startling expression the Gothic, a huge, white, lacy terra cotta screen of pointed arches, gargoyles, bosses, shields and other elements of a style that was gaining popularity because it was suited to the vertical character of the new, taller buildings -- the Woolworth Building was completed in 1913 in a very similar style."

Mr. Gray noted that initially "apartments at the Gramercy Park building were advertised for sale at $8,900 to $12,000, and some were rented at $2,350 to $3,168 a year," adding that "The 1915 census picked up a miscellany of businessmen and professionals, along with some artistic types -- like John Barrymore, who was a year away from breaking out of a career as a popular star of lightweight comedies and becoming one of the most acclaimed dramatic actors of his day."

The first three floors of the building, according to Mr. Gray, were "meant to be marble but were executed in less-expensive terra cotta, and the entrance hall floor was specified as Tennessee marble, while in fact it was finished in a lovely, irregular art tile in brown, green, red and tan."

The terra-cotta-clad, Neo-Gothic building has a light-court entrance with a four-step-up entrance flanked by knights in armor.