1 Great Jones Alley, 688 Broadway: Review and Ratings

Review of 688 Broadway by Carter Horsley

This 12-story luxurious boutique residential condominium building at 1 Great Jones Alley is scheduled for completion by Madison Realty Capital, which is headed by Brian Shatz, in 2019.

It has been designed by BKSK Architects and its main façade with vertical, thin, terra-cotta fins with fenestration patterns that alternate by floor is similar to a limestone one they used nearby 25 Bond Street.

The building, which is also known as 688 Broadway, has 14 apartments and 6,084 square feet of retail space.

It is on the site of an outdoor flea market that just to the south of a large Tower Records store that no long exists. 

The alley is between Broadway and Lafayette Street, off Great Jones Street.

HMWhite is the landscape architect.

Bottom Line

A combination of high-tech and zen, this luxurious boutique condo has the charm of its own, gated, cobbled alley just to the north of the very glamorous Bond Street in NoHo.

Description

The building is distinguished by its screen façade on Broadway of thin terra-cotta fins that replaces a former open-air flea market.

The building’s entrance is through a gate and at the rear of its cobblestone alley that leads also to a “glass jewel box” staircase to a “petite” second-story garden.  The building is accented by Corten steel elements.

The rear wall of the alley and one of the lobby walls is made of light blue tiles.

Amenities

The building has a gym, storage and a gorgeous spa with thermal baths.

Apartments

Apartments have ceilings of more than 10 feet and Arclinea kitchens.

Baths have steam showers with rain-shower heads and hand wands next to Japanese-style soaking tubs with slatted teak floors.

The four-bedroom penthouse occupies the 11^th and 12^th floor and has 5,596 square feet of interior space and 1,009 square feet of exterior space.  The lower level has the bedrooms, a study and the family room.  The upper level has a 41-foot-wide great room with an open 20-foot-long kitchen and east and west terraces.

The 8^th floor apartment is a four-bedroom unit with 3,303 square feet of interior space and 298 square feet of exterior space with an entry foyer that leads west to a 24-foot-wide great room and east to a 18-foot-wide family room that opens onto to the unit’s terrace.  The unit has an enclosed 18-foot-long kitchen with a pass-through to the family room.

Apartment B on the 3^rd through the 7^th floor is a three-bedroom unit with 1,874 square feet of interior space and 120 square feet of exterior space with a 24-foot-wide great room and a 12-foot-wide, open, pass-through kitchen.

Apartment 2B is a two-bedroom unit with 1,711 square feet of interior space and 1,179 square feet of exterior space with an entry foyer that leads to a 18-foot-wide great room next to an open, pass-through, 12-foot-wide kitchen.

Apartment A on the 2^nd through the 7^th floors is a two-bedroom unit with 1,778 square feet of interior space, a 22-foot-wide great room and an open, pass-through, 14-foot-wide kitchen.

History

According to a November 15, 2015 article by Ronda Kaysen in The New York Times the alley was “laid in 1806 as part of a country road called Cross Lane.”  “It began around where Bleecker and Mott Streets are today, and continued in a zigzag to just short of what is now East Fourth Street, according to Gerard Koeppel, the author of ‘City on a Grid: How New York Became New York’ (Da Capo, 2015).”

“As the city grew up around it, and new, wider roads like Lafayette Street were laid, Cross Lane retreated, too narrow to be used as a modern thoroughfare.  By the turn of the last century, the northernmost segment was gated, according to Dan Cobleigh, a managing director of Madison Capital Realty.  Great Jones Alley ‘has been disappearing in bits for generations,’ Mr. Koeppel said,” the article continued.

An October 9, 2012 article by Jeremiah Budin at ny.curbed.com noted that BKSK “completely won over the Landmarks Preservation Commission,” adding that the “commission was thoroughly smitten with the building's design, calling it ‘thrilling,’ ‘ravishing,’ and admirably consistent with the character of the façades throughout the Noho Historic District. ‘I want to reach out and touch this building,’ one commissioner said, while another predicted that it would someday become a New York City landmark itself. Even the testimony from various preservationist groups was overwhelmingly favorable, as a representative from the Society for the Architecture of the City stated that the design was proof that ‘a new building can be, as they say, of our time without displaying contempt for the past.’”