Midwest Court, 410 West 53rd Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 410 West 53rd Street by Carter Horsley

This quite attractive, 7-story, rental apartment building was erected by Rockrose Development, one of the city's leading residential builders, in 1987 and has 220 units.

The mid-block building at 410 West 50th Street is between Ninth and Tenth Avenues in the heart of the Clinton District, not too far from the northern fringes of the city's theater district. One of the great attractions of the district is its low-rise nature. In the 1970's, the community opposed the creation of a new convention center in the mid-40's along the river and encouraged the city to adopt new zoning to protect it from substantial new high-rise development.

A new convention center was built further south and by the late 1990s new development was beginning to transform the district's eastern boundary at Eighth Avenue, spurred by the renaissance of Times Square.

In the meantime, the Lincoln Center District to the north was transforming the lower part of the Upper West Side into one of the city's most vibrant and desirable neighborhoods just as major new projects along 57th Street were also pushing westward.

As a result, this quiet neighborhood has become quite desirable and this building nicely demonstrates that low-rise buildings that are not scarred by ancient fire escapes can be attractive.

The ambiance is helped here considerably by a cast-iron fence in front of the building and small cast-iron fences around the trees on the sidewalks. The building's very long frontage is mitigated by its handsome fenestration pattern.

The building has a doorman, a garden courtyard, a sundeck and video security.

There is good neighborhood shopping and 57th Street has excellent crosstown bus service.