Bruce Eichner’s Continuum Company is building an 18-story condominium high-rise at 26-40 East 35th Street in Murray Hill. The 180,000 square foot project will bring 137 new condos, a community space, and on-site parking to a mid-block site between Park and Madison Avenues, just a block south of the Morgan Library & Museum, and in the shadow of the Empire State Building.
The development replaces several historically significant buildings, including the former home of the Metropolitan Synagogue and the Community Church of New York, one of the city’s oldest congregations, dating back to 1825. The body has long served as a hub for civil rights and progressive causes, and its legacy includes hosting folk singer Pete Seeger (“This Land Was Made for You and Me”), Nelson Mandela, and a legendary debate between Malcolm X and Bayard Rustin. After 9/11, the church became a sanctuary for grieving New Yorkers and since then, has been active in social justice efforts both locally and abroad.
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Community Church of New York and The Metropolitan Synagogue, 40 East 35th Street, By Jim.henderson - Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=130954871
According to the Murray Hill Neighborhood Association, redevelopment of the land has been a subject of conversation in the community since the early 1980s when the church attempted to build a 70-story building on the parcel but was defeated by preservationists who succeeded in obtaining a downzoning of the block.
Four decades later, in a contentious 2022 vote, the 80-person congregation voted to sell the church and the four adjacent brownstones to the Continuum Company for close to $66 million. The State Attorney General cleared the sale of the not-for-profit to a for-profit developer in 2022, and the deal closed in 2024.
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CM & Associates is the construction manager
While Continuum fully assembled the site in 2021, progress was delayed by a soft pandemic-ravaged condo market, compounded by a tragic on-site accident last year where a construction worker lost his life. Since then, the 177,328-square-foot project has been in full swing, with foundation work completed and the superstructure three stories up on the eastern side of the site as of late October 2025.
SLCE Architects is listed as the architect of record on permits. The new 18-floor building will be modest in height by Midtown Manhattan standards and rise just 191 feet tall. It will be a fairly sizable condo offering with 137 units. South-facing apartments will overlook a rear yard, and there will be 17 enclosed parking spaces, and an approximately 2,000 square foot community facility space, that may or may not be related to the pre-existing congregations.
Released renderings and drawings show the building will have an understated presence. Strong vertical piers, clad in Porcelanosa porcelain and burgundy-colored accents pay homage to the Empire State Building nearby. Due to the site's dense surroundings, the curtain wall system will be prefabricated off-site by Dextall, and is designed meet strict energy performance targets "while delivering custom architectural aesthetics at scale," says the firm.
The two handsome townhouses directly west of the project site will thankfully remain, and a portion of the new tower will cantilever over the eastern-most row house. The building will be rather bulky due to height limits but provides several shallow setbacks as it rises, giving some residents terrace opportunities.
The two handsome townhouses directly west of the project site will thankfully remain, and a portion of the new tower will cantilever over the eastern-most row house. The building will be rather bulky due to height limits but provides several shallow setbacks as it rises, giving some residents terrace opportunities.
Rendering of 38-40 East 35th Street and prefabricated facade panel by Dextall | https://www.dextall.com/projects/38-e-35th-st
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Views from the new mid-rise will be limited as a 12-story rental 35 East 35th Street sits directly across the street and several taller buildings lie to the south as well. Instead of views, the prize for residents will be living on a rather sedate, tree-lined block of Midtown within a few moments of Penn Station, Grand Central, and Bryant Park. Furthermore, Yeshiva University's Midtown campus, NYU Downtown Hospital, the United Nations and all its auxiliary offices, and millions of square feet of Midtown South and Garment District are in walking distance.
Encompassing the full block directly west of the project is the grand marble structure that once housed B. Altman & Co., the department store that helped draw upscale retail to this stretch of Fifth and Madison Avenues when it opened in 1906. After B. Altman’s 1989 bankruptcy, the building was repurposed into an academic hub, now home to CUNY’s Graduate Center, the NYPL’s Science, Industry and Business Library, and Oxford University Press.
East 35th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues
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