The Coliseum Park Apartments, 345 West 58th Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 345 West 58th Street by Carter Horsley

This large, two-building complex just to the west of the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle was built in 1957 and has a total of 605 co-operative apartments. 

The 14-story, red-brick buildings, which has addresses of 30 West 60th Street and 345 West 58th Street, have a two-acre center garden for residents only. 

It was designed by Sylvan and Robert Bien. 

They are across Ninth Avenue from a large church that overlooks its garden and it is half a block west of Columbus Circle and the entrance to Central Park. 

With the subsequent development of the Time Warner Center, this development is convenient to many restaurants and stores. 

It is also convenient to public transportation and is a few blocks south of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. 

It is also known as 1-19 Columbus Avenue and 910-930 Ninth Avenue

Bottom Line

A large co-operative apartment complex just behind the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle with 605 units in two 14-story slab towers that frame a very handsome and large formal garden and have impressive entrance marquees, driveways and landscaping.

Description

The large slab buildings have considerable landscaping with curved driveways and dramatic entrance marquees that extend over the driveways with a slight angle.  There are two levels of steps beneath that the marquee. 

The buildings have discrete air-conditioners and large lobbies with glass walls overlooking the garden, which is formal and has a one-story wall at its western end.

Amenities

The buildings have 24-hour doormen, a garage, a live-in superintendent, a laundry, a package room, storage, a bicycle room and fitness center.

Apartments

Apartment 4NP is a three-bedroom unit with a 14-foot-wide entry foyer that leads in one direction past an open, 17-foot-wide, windowed kitchen with a breakfast bar next to a 17-foot-wide dining area that next to a 19-foot-wide living room.  In the other direction, the foyer leads to a 13-foot-wide office and the bedrooms. 

Apartment 7M is a two-bedroom unit with an entry foyer that leads to a 18-foot-long living room with a fireplace and a 9-foot-long dining area  next to a 15-foot-long open kitchen with a breakfast bar. 

Apartment 12A is a two-bedroom unit with a 10-foot-wide entry foyer that leads to a 22-foot-long living room and a 12-foot-long dining room next to an enclosed 8-foot-long kitchen. 

Apartment 6L is a studio unit with an entry foyer that leads to a 7-foot-long dining area next to an enclosed 7-foot-long kitchen and a 17-foot-long living area with a corner window.

History

In their great book, "New York 1960, Architecture and Urbanism Between The Second World War and the Bicentennial," Robert A. M. Stern, Thomas Mellins and David Fishman provide the following commentary about this site: 

"By the end of World War II Columbus Circle, the Upper West Side's principal gateway, had become the slightly seedy northern terminus of the theater district....Postwar activity began with a proposal for a new indoor sports arena in 1946.  a 25,000-sear facility intendend to supplement Madison Square Garden, the arena was the brainchild of the Garden's president, General John Reed Kilpatrick, and Robert Moses, who proposed it combination with a 200,000-square-foot exhibition and convention space.  Difficulties in obtaining funding authorization in Albany, as well as the growth of television - which cut down the audiences willing to pay to attend sporting events - stalled the project. 

"In December 1952, Robert Moses, in his dual roles as chairman of the Mayor's Committee and Slum Clearance and chairman of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, secured federal funds for the development of two blocks immediately west of Columbus Circle, which was combined to create a site big enough for a major convention and exhibition facility to be known as the Coliseum.  The new building would fill the void left in 1951 by the conversion of the Grand Central Palace...into an office building.  Moses proposed to meet the site-acquisition costs with funds obtained through the new federal Title I program, which was intended to help clear slums and building affordable housing.  Because the program required that project receiving funding must be dominated by residential construction, Moses dedicated more than half the site to residential purposes, although he counted the land used for parking as part of the housing. 

"Acquisition costs for the site...were very high, in fact the highest every in the nation, six times the average cost of a typical Title I project in New York.... 

"Although Skidmore, Owens & Merrill were at one point rumored to have been selected to design the Coliseum, the job was ultimately awarded to Leon and Lionel Levy, who had been associated with the project since its inception, in consultation with John B. Peterkin, Aymar Embury II and Eggers & Higgins.... 

"The residential component of the project consisted of the Coliseum Park Apartments...at 345 West 58th Street and 350 West 60th Street, which overlooked a two-acre garden set between the two buildings atop the complex's 300-car garage.  Though comparable in size to I. M. Pei's Kips Bay Plaza, Sylvan and Robert Bien's red-brick façades were unassuming, if not simply boring, but the thin slab entrance canopies carried on metal pipe were rather witty." 

A June 9, 1985 article by George W. Goodman in The New York Times reported that the State Court of Appeals had upheld a lower-court decision allowing the real-estate developer Harry Helmsley to sell as condominiums, without city approval, 800 rental units in Manhattan built on land cleared under a Federal urban-renewal program. 

The article noted that "besides the complex that Mr. Helmsley owns, Park West Village, on Central Park West, the decision last week affects the Coliseum Park Apartments also on the West Side, whose owners sought to sell, without city approval, their 575 units as cooperatives."  It added that "Coliseum Park is owned by four general partners, Charles Punia, the estate of William Marx, Jacob Kreeger and Alvin Orlian." 

"Both developments," the article continued, "were built as rental housing during the 1950's under the Federal Title I program, which demolished slums to renew impoverished areas. But, because no Federal money was used in the construction of the buildings, the developers argued that they should be allowed to convert them without the city's permission. 

"Their conversion has been opposed by the State Attorney General's office and tenant groups, who maintain that under a covenant between the Federal Government and the developers, who no longer own them, ''no change shall be made in such projects'' for 40 years from their completion '''without consent of the City Planning Commission and the Board of Estimate.' The covenant was designed to protect moderate-income residents. 

"The Attorney General's office revoked its acceptance of the Coliseum Park conversion plan in 1983 and rejected the Park West Village conversion plan on grounds that neither disclosed the need for city approval. 

"In both cases, the owners contended that, while city approval might be required for changes in usage and density, no approval was necessary for conversion to cooperative or condominium ownership. 

"The owners of both developments sued the Attorney General and, in February 1984, a State Supreme Court Justice, Martin Evans, ruled in their favor. That decision was subsequently upheld in the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court. The state then appealed to the Court of Appeals, which affirmed that decision without comment on Tuesday."