The Yorkgate, 25 East End Avenue: Review and Ratings

Review of 25 East End Avenue by Carter Horsley

This very handsome, 16-story, cooperative apartment building at 25 East End Avenue  on the northeast corner at 80^th Street was erected in 1928. 

It is known as Yorkgate and was designed by Cross & Cross, that was founded in 1907 by John W. Cross and his brother, Eliot. Eliot was also chairman of Webb & Knapp and according to a January 24, 1949 article “it was through a syndicate head by Mr. Cross that the development of Sutton Place began. With Rosario Candela, his firm designed One Sutton Place South and 720 Park Avenue. 

The building is one of the most attractive on East End Avenue, and it used to also front on Marie Curie Avenue, which was removed to accommodate the FDR Drive. 

It has 38 apartments.

Bottom Line

An extremely attractive pre-war cooperative building with only 38 apartments, wood-burning fireplaces, and an elevator operator.

Description

The building has a two-story stone base and is distinguished by its bold quoins and finials. It has many balconies facing the river.

Amenities

Apartment 10C is a two-bedroom unit that has a 8-foot-wide entrance foyer that leads to a 20-foot-long living room with a wood-burning fireplace adjacent to an enclosed 14-foot-long dining room off the enclosed 14-foot-long kitchen. 

Apartment 11GHD is a duplex on the 10^th and 11^th floors that has a 15-foot-wide entrance gallery on the upper level that leads to a 24-foot-long corner living room with a wood-burning fireplace and a 20-foot-long library and two bedrooms on one side and a 19-foot-long dining room and a 25-foot-long kitchen and one bedroom on the other side.  The lower level has a 25-foot-long recreation room with wood-burning fireplace and a 15-foot-long bedroom.  There is also a 10-foot-long maid’s room on the third floor.

Apartments

Apartment 10C is a two-bedroom unit that has a 8-foot-wide entrance foyer that leads to a 20-foot-long living room with a wood-burning fireplace adjacent to an enclosed 14-foot-long dining room off the enclosed 14-foot-long kitchen. 

Apartment 11GHD is a duplex on the 10^th and 11^th floors that has a 15-foot-wide entrance gallery on the upper level that leads to a 24-foot-long corner living room with a wood-burning fireplace and a 20-foot-long library and two bedrooms on one side and a 19-foot-long dining room and a 25-foot-long kitchen and one bedroom on the other side.  The lower level has a 25-foot-long recreation room with wood-burning fireplace and a 15-foot-long bedroom.  There is also a 10-foot-long maid’s room on the third floor.

History

In a September 2, 2007 article in The New York Times, Christopher Gray wrote that the "neo-Georgian" building was the first apartment building on East End Avenue and went up about the same time as the Neo-Georgian-style Chapin School a few blocks to the north on the short avenue.” 

"Each floor was divided into three apartments , the northerly unit running from the East River to the East End, so fresh air could rush past the three double doors on the balcony of the 14-by-26-foot living room, through the 7-by-25-foot foyer and then out the windows of the library....The construction of 25 East End was somewhat daring since the avenue south of 84th Street was still industrial." 

Mr. Gray also noted that Charles MacArthur, the author of "The Front Page" and his wife, Helen Hayes, the actress, lived in the building and that in 2007 a 10-room apartment on the 14th floor sold for $4.3 million. 

The building's elegance led to the erection the following year of 1 East End Avenue on the block just to the south on a trapezoidal site that is only 29 feet wide at the south end, where there is an entrance to the FDR Drive. 

The two buildings complement one another very well and had the Depression not intervened might have led to the creation of one of the city's most impressive residential avenues. 

The southern terminus of East End Avenue is the full-block model tenement project known as City & Suburban Homes.