Monterey at Park, 30 Park Avenue: Review and Ratings

Review of 30 Park Avenue by Carter Horsley

This handsome, beige-brick, 20-story building was erected in 1954 and has 237 rental apartments.

The building has a canopied entrance with a one-story polished black granite entrance surround, a doorman, some bay windows, protruding air-conditioners and a garage. It has no sidewalk landscaping, no health club, and no balconies.

It is in the heart of the attractive Murray Hill District, half a block away from the great Morgan Library museum on Madison Avenue, and six blocks directly south of Grand Central Terminal.

This section of midtown was relatively quiet for many decades but since the late 1980s new development on Fifth Avenue to the west and around the Manhattan entrance to the Queens-Midtown Tunnel to the east near the East River have significantly enlivened the area.

Park Avenue above 34th Street in Murray Hill is very handsome and some of the sidestreets are very lovely and lined with handsome townhouses.

There is good public transportation nearby at 34th Street.

The building was owned for many years by the Rudin Organization, which sold it in 2005 to BlackRock, Inc., and Calpers for about $97 million.

The new owners were expected to convert the building to residential condominiums, but Kathleen Baum, who handles public relations for BlackRock, did not return a call from CityRealty.com.

The beige-brick building, which is on the northwest corner at 36th Street, was erected by the Rudins in 1954 and was designed by Emery Roth, who was the architect of many prominent buildings in the city including the San Remo and Beresford apartment towers on Central Park West. It has 237 apartments.

It has a polished black granite entrance surround and canopy, a garage, sidewalk landscaping, and some corner and bay windows. It permits protruding air-conditioners.

The Rudin Management Company was founded in 1902 by Samuel Rudin. His first building was a six-story, elevator building on Benson Street.

After World War II, his sons, Lewis and Jack became active builders of apartment buildings and Samuel Rudin built his first office building in the 1955 at 415 Madison Avenue.

In October 1971, Lewis Rudin founded the Association for a Better New York, a civic organization and sponsored the first New York City Marathon. He died September 20, 2001.

The firm is considered to be one of the original "investment builders," having never sold an office building it built. In 1993, Lewis' son, William, was named president of Rudin Management.

In 2004, the organization decided to sell one of its commercial properties, 32 Avenue of the Americas, for the first time. It was, however, not a building erected by the Rudins.

Its portfolio of office buildings includes the Reuters Building at 3 Times Square, the Merchandise Mart Building at 41 Madison Avenue, 1675 Broadway and 345 Park Avenue.

The Rudins became one of the seven great and legendary building families of New York after World War II. The other families are the Tishmans, the Urises, the Minskoffs, the Fishers, the Kaufmans and the Dursts.

As of June 30, 2005, BlackRock managed approximately $9 billion in real estate strategies, according to its website, which also stated that at that time its "assets under management total $414 billion across fixed income, liquidity, equity, alternative investment and real estate strategies."

The building has a 24-hour doorman, and a fitness center and David Kenneth Spector redesigned the lobby and hallways in 2007.