The Centrale, 138 East 50th Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 138 East 50th Street by Carter Horsley

This attractive, slender, 803-foot-high, mid-block condominium tower at 136 East 50th Street is known as The Centrale and is about half a block east of the Waldorf-Astoria.  It has 124 apartments. 

Ceruzzi Properties and SMI USA are the developers.  Ceruzzo's other projects in the city include a 72-story, mixed-use tower at 520 Fifth Avenue on the northwest corner at 43rd Street.  Ceruzzi acquired the site for $86 million in 2013 from Extell, which is headed by Gary Barnett. 

The company's principal, Lou Ceruzzi, died in 2017.  

It has been designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli, which also designed the Bloomberg Tower on Lexington Avenue at 58th Street, the World Financial Center, 1214 Fifth Avenue, the green and blue buildings at the Pacific Design Center and the Petronas Towers that were featured in the movie, "Entrapment," with Sean Connery.  SLCE was executive architect on this project. 

Champalimaud is the interior designer. 

The site includes a parcel at 151 East 49th Street and the building has 4,588 square feet of retail space.

Bottom Line

This slim glass and terra-cotta, mid-block tower shifts its textured mullions and their angles above a shimmering, setback base of thin louvers and its top is more than 175 feet higher than the twin copper peaks of the nearby Waldorf Astoria.

Description

With a quite dramatic, angled entrance base festooned with hanging thin vertical louvers, this thin but very tall tower offsets its vertically ribbed terra cotta mullions in a rather jazzy façade dance.  It's not a whole lot of shaking, but enough for the somewhat sedate East Midtown district.

Amenities

The building has a concierge, a porte-corchere, a fitness center with a 75-foot lap pool, a Club Terrace with wet bar, a conference room, a pet-friendly Garden terrace, and a garage.

Apartments

Apartments have Gaggenau kitchen appliances, honed Capri marble countertops and backsplashes and washers and dryers. 

A five-bedroom penthouse duplex unit was listed at $39.9 million, according to an April 4, 2019 article by Katherine Clarke in The Wall Street Journal.  The unit, which has a private elevator vestibule, has 5,388 square feet, and a library with a gas fireplace. 

Apartment 62 is a four-bedroom unit with 2,756 square feet with a 9-foot-wide entry foyer that leads to a 28-foot-long living/dining room and an enclosed 18-foot-long kitchen with an island. 

Apartment 35A is a two-bedroom unit with 1,529 square feet with a 5-foot-long entry foyer that leads to a 20-foot-long living/dining room with an open 16-foot-wide kitchen with an island. 

Apartment 21C is a two-bedroom unit with 1,343 square feet with a 9-foot-long foyer that leads to an 18-foot-long living and dining room and an open 12-foot-wide kitchen with a breakfast bar. 

Apartment 21D is a two-bedroom unit with 1,207 square feet and a 9-foot-long entry foyer that leads past an open, 11-foot-wide kitchen with a breakfast bar to an 18-foot-wide living and dining room. 

Apartment 32B is a one-bedroom unit with 777 square feet of space with a 5-foot-long entry foyer that leads past a 8-foot-wide open kitchen with a breakfast bar to a 19-foot-long living and dining room.