The Raleigh, 829 Park Avenue: Review and Ratings

Review of 829 Park Avenue by Carter Horsley

The two wings of this 12-story apartment building at 829 Park Avenue on the southeast corner at 76th Street were designed by Pickering & Walker and were erected in 1909.

The building was converted to a co-operative in 1957 and has 48 apartments.

Its architects designed a very similar structure a year later just to the south at 823 Park Avenue but that building is slightly broader with two rather than one window flanking each side of the avenue’s three-window bays.

Bottom Line

The light-colored façades give this deep-light-well, pre-war building considerable elegance at a very desirable location.

Description

In his March 29, 1992 “Streetscapes” column in The New York Times, Christopher Gray wrote that “the 829 Park Avenue building went up in the early days of the luxury apartment movement in new York and reflects the difficult search for an appropriate design for this new kind of structure.”

"The entrance,” Mr. Gray wrote, “is centered at the bottom of a street opening light court – a device soon discarded by architects – and the light, buff-brick façades area dominated by unusual triplet window bays rising to the top….The use of buff-colored brick, the lack of a projecting cornice and the emphasis on windows opening to the street also reflect concerns at the time for maximizing natural light both on the street and in the interior.  But views of the 1920s show Nos. 829 and 823 to be noticeably soot-stained and discolored, while such soiling was hidden on more conventional, dark brick buildings. The co-op cleaning the façade last year and 829’s soft, cream-colored brick now reproaches its still-sooty neighbor at 823. Equally dramatic is the way the buff painted windows work in harmony with this. The black windows at 823 look like sunken hollows, but the lighter color at 829, more or less matching the masonry, gives a lightness, a freshness and a sense of coherence to the 829 façade."

Amenities

The building has a doorman, but no garage and no roof deck.

Apartments

Apartment 11D is a three-bedroom unit that has a small entry foyer that leads to a 16-foot-long dining room next to a 15-foot-long kitchen and down a hall from the 26-foot-wide living room with a fireplace.

The maisonette is a three-bedroom unit with an entry foyer that leads to a 35-foot-long living room and a 16-foot-long dining room adjoining the enclosed kitchen.  The apartment also has two windowed offices.

Apartment 3B is a three-bedroom duplex with a 21-foot-long entrance gallery with staircase that leads to a 27-foot-long living room and dining room with a wood-burning fireplace next to a 16-foot-long enclosed kitchen and a 15-foot-long den on the lower  level.  The bedrooms are on the 4^th floor.

Apartment 6C has a long entrance hall that leads to a 17-foot-long living room that opens onto a 17-foot-long dining room next to an enclosed kitchen, an 18-foot-long bedroom and a 11-foot-long maid’s room and there are two bedrooms on the other floor.

Location

The building faces the full-block Lenox Hill Hospital across 76^th Street, but its main entrance is on 77^th Street, where there is also a local subway station.

It is close to Madison Avenue’s boutiques and the many cultural institutions along “Museum Mile” on Fifth Avenue.