865 United Nations Plaza: Review and Ratings

Review of 865 United Nations Plaza by Carter Horsley

The apartment building at 865 United Nations Plaza on the northwest corner of First Avenue and 47th Street was erected in 1928 and designed by George and Irving Blum. 

The 15-story red-brick building was acquired in 2006 by Samson Management and has 81 condominium apartments.

The eclectic building has some white accent lines placed seemingly at random on its façade whose south section on the avenue looks washed out.

Bottom Line

With its vistas of the United Nations and its gardens and the East River, this distinctive, pre-war apartment building is convenient to the Beekman Place neighborhood and notable for its odd design “touches.”

Description

The brown-brick building has a thin white cornice and thin white bandcourses that run partially at the 2^nd, 3^rd, and 14^th floors and it has decorate masonry spandrels beneath some of the windows on the fourth through seventh floors and some white window surrounds on the second, third, seventh and 14^th floors, a small arched window on the top floor and decorative light-colored spandrels at the roofline. 

In addition, the building permits protruding air-conditioners and has a canopied entrance with a window surround above it. 

It also has a jagged, irregular and thin “quoin” corner at the south corner and a similar quoin that is diagonal between the second and third floors in the center of the building where part of the façade projects slightly. 

Such unusual and purposely perverse but delightful detailing suggests that the architects consumed a fair bit of wine in their studio with their developer on this project.

Amenities

The building has a full-time doorman, a bicycle room and a superintendent.  It has no roof deck and no health club and there is considerable traffic on 1^st Avenue.

Apartments

Penthouse B is one-bedroom unit with a 22-foot-long living/dining room with an enclosed kitchen and a working fireplace and a 63-foot-long terrace that wraps around to a 19-foot-long terrace. 

A studio unit has a 5-foot-long entry foyer that leads to an 8-foot-long hall that opens into a 20-foot-long sudio with a wood-burning fireplace on the 14^th through the 16^th floors.  The unit has an enclosed kitchen with a 8-foot-long dining area. 

Apartment 12D is a one-bedroom unit that has a 12-foot-long entry foyer that passes a long kitchen and an enclosed 9-foot-long dining room/office to a 21-foot-long living room with a fireplace. 

A one-bedroom unit has an entry foyer that leads to a 10-foot-wide hall that opens onto a 21-foot-wide living/dining room with a fireplace on the 14^th through the 16^th floor.  The unit has a long enclosed and windowed kitchen, 

Another one-bedroom unit has a 6-foot-foyer off an enclosed kitchen that leads to a 13-foot-long hall  that open onto a 20-foot-long living dining room with a fireplace on the 14^th through the 16^th floors.  The living room and the 15-foot-long bedrooms have windows on the 7^th through the 16^th floors.

History

In his “Streetscapes” column October 17, 1993 in The New York Times, Christopher Gray noted that “George and Edward Blum formed one of the city’s great nonconformist architectural firms, producing some of our most unusual apartment houses.” 

Some of their other Manhattan apartment buildings include the Phaeton at 539 West 112^th Street, 555, 830, 840 and 929 Park Avenue, 200 West 54^th street, 251 West 89^th Street, 610 and 780 West End Avenue and the Hotel Theresa at 125^th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard.