33 East 70th Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 33 East 70th Street by Carter Horsley

Sometimes big buildings like to be thought of as smaller.

This very elegant building was erected in 1929 and has separate addresses and entrances on 70th and 71st Streets, but the building for each address is the same and occupies the entire blockfront on Madison Avenue where it has some of the city's classiest boutiques such as Yves St. Laurent.

This part of the 11-story, red-brick building has 44 apartments while the part at 30 East 71st Street has 21 apartments.

Many critics regard parts of East 70th Street as one of the prettiest in the city, but the 71st Street part of this building is across from the very elegant St. James Episcopal Church. Both parts of the building, more importantly, have many apartments facing Madison Avenue that have magnificent views of Central Park because of the low-rise buildings on the other side of the avenue and the presence of the fabulous Frick Collection on Fifth Avenue.

This building not only has very high-end retail spaces on the ground floor, but also a very impressive second floor of retail space with its own entrance on the avenue. The very handsome building has a handsome cartouche on both of its avenue corners, sidewalk landscaping and a two-story limestone base. It has basement storage and a health club, but no garage, and no sun deck and permits protruding air-conditioners.

In addition to the nearby Frick Collection whose entrance is half a block to the west, there are many prestigious art galleries nearby including Hirschl & Adler, Knoedler and the Berry-Hill Galleries. The Whitney Museum of American Art is five blocks north on the avenue and Central Park, of course, is only one block away.

While the side-streets here are very quiet, the avenue has considerable traffic but is also the most desirable pedestrian jaunt in the United States because of its ever-changing and always impressive retail ambiance.

There is cross-town bus service on 72nd and 67th Streets and a subway station is several blocks away at 67th Street and Lexington Avenue.

The apartments here with Central Park views have major advantages over Fifth Avenue buildings for some people who don't love a parade and lots of parades use Fifth Avenue as their stomping grounds.