The Buckingham East, 225 East 86th Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 225 East 86th Street by Carter Horsley

This stretch of Yorkville used to have many dance halls and German beer emporiums and this building and the adjacent apartment house at 233, erected one year later, marked the beginning of the radical transformation of this area from an lively entertainment district and ethnic enclave to a high-rise "luxury" residential neighborhood.

86th Street in this vicinity remains an important retail artery on the Upper East Side, however, because of the proximity of the express subway station at Lexington Avenue. Directly across the street from this building, whose retail frontage is leased to a discount drugstore, for example, are a Barnes & Noble bookstore, a Burger King, a Ben & Jerry, and a Circuit City store.

This 15-story, midblock building was erected in 1982 and converted to a condominium with 60 apartments in 1986. It was designed by Stephen B. Jacobs & Associates.

It has a reddish beige-brick façade with large lunette windows on the second floor and arched windows on the top floor.

"Post-Baroque fun with windows," was how the building was described by Elliot Willensky and Norval White in their excellent book, "The AIA Guide to New York City, Third Edition," (Harcourt Brace & Jovanovich, 1988).

The façade of the base of the building is punctuated by two small, partitioned balconies and the setback tower portion of the building has several large protruding "wintergardens" (glass-enclosed balconies).

The building has discrete air-conditioners, no sidewalk landscaping and a step-up entrance leading to a small, paneled lobby with a concierge.

This neighborhood has good neighborhood shopping and many private schools and religious institutions. This building is a long block and a half from an express subway station at Lexington Avenue and there is excellent crosstown bus service.

Carter B. Horsley