Hudson River Dioramas, 495 West Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 495 West Street by Carter Horsley

This 11-story condominium building, which commands sweeping vistas of the Hudson river and the New Jersey riverfront, was completed in 1999 and has only 9 apartments.

It is distinguished by ribbed banding on its second through seventh floors. The top four floors are set back from the base.

The cream-colored building has an angled, inset entrance with video intercom. It has an exposed rooftop water-tank and no doorman, no health club, no balconies, no garage and no sidewalk landscaping.

It is just to the south of a parking lot that is across Jane Street from the very handsome Hotel Riverview that was originally the American Seamen's Friend Society Institute and dates to 1907.

This area of the Far West Village underwent a phenomenal renaissance in the late 1990s and is now one of the city's most interesting and desirable neighborhoods. Some of the nearby sidestreets have lovely 19th Century townhouses and there have been many attractive residential conversions of former commercial buildings and some very distinctive new construction such as the splendid apartment building nearby at 99 Jane Street designed in 1999 by Fox & Fowle. There are many interesting and popular restaurants in the former meat-market district a few blocks to the north and also on Hudson Street, a couple of blocks to the east.

While this area is not convenient to public transportation, it is one of the city's most enjoyable walking districts. St. Luke's School is a few blocks to the south on Hudson Street and there are numerous antiques stores and boutiques along Bleecker Street. There is, of course, considerable traffic on West street, but after a couple of decades of controversy over the proposed Westway project that was defeated by environmentalists, access to the waterfront is being improved.