New Apartments Listed at Highly Controversial Building After Years of Opposition

After a years-long battle between property developers and local activists, expensive new rental listings have hit the market at a historic Carnegie Hill building on Fifth Avenue.

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Real estate brokerage firm Living New York is leasing the apartments at 1143 Fifth Avenue (between 95th and 96th streets). Of the seven apartments, six are 2,000 square foot “full-floor, two-bedroom apartments” with 65 square feet of private outdoor space that start at $18,000 per month, and one is a 3,200 square foot penthouse duplex with 1,080 square feet of private outdoor space that is priced at $35,000 per month.

The building also includes a shared rooftop terrace for all residents, as well as other amenities like heated bath floors, motorized “blackout shades” in the bedrooms and perhaps the most crucial of all Manhattan services—access to Verizon FIOS TV and Internet.

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“Pinned in NYC bedrock, the building is here to stay servicing contemporary and future generations of New Yorkers with the same quality and attention to detail befitting the original intent of a state-of-the-art residential building,” developer Stephen Gallira said in a press release. “After a full century, the building still retains that prestige.”

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The original building was designed by architect J.E.R. Carpenter and constructed from 1922-1923, according to the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission. The building, constructed of red brick in the neo-federal style, is shorter than others around it due to the fact the zoning laws at the time restricted its height to 75 feet. Carnegie Hill Architectural Guide describes the building as “David surrounded by Goliaths.”

In 1993, it was included in the expanded Carnegie Hill Historic District and fell under the purview of the LPC. After years of being maintained and overlooked by the LPC, the building eventually became a residence again, and an eighth floor penthouse was added in the 1990s, according to the New York Post. At one point it was owned by the French Consulate before being sold to Jean Claude Marian for $36.4 million in 2013.

A few years later, starting in November 2015, Marian tried to get approval for a grander expansion—much to the chagrin of Manhattan Community Board 8 and neighborhood organizations like Friends of J.E.R. Carpenter, Carnegie Hill Neighbors and Historic Fifth Avenue. After a series of proposals by different architects—the first of which aimed to basically double the size of the building—and rejections, the LPC finally approved the small rooftop addition in May of 2016 after a fourth redesign. The final proposal included making the addition beige instead of brick (to distinguish it from the original structure), an expansion of the rear of the building, restoring the building’s façade, and more, according to New York YIMBY.

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“I wasn’t happy with the initial presentation and I’m not happy with the final iteration,” Michelle Birnbaum, president of Historic Fifth Avenue, told the NY Post on Wednesday, adding that she thinks the penthouse is too big and the new windows clash with the old ones. “I’m not pleased.”

Still, Gallira insists that his firm is doing justice to Carpenter’s original design.

“We took it as a responsibility to the community and to the original developers who had the foresight to build the finest New York had to offer on what was then a dirt road,” he said, according to a press release.

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