As if trying to rid the block of the bad aftertaste of the blocky bunker-like Hunter College School for Social Work, the Upper East Side is filling the void left at 135 East 79th Street with a 19-story homage to old New York, when buildings could look imposing without resembling a municipal jail. The Brodsky Organization recently fired up the teaser site for its 19-story, 32-unit residential tower near the corner of Lexington Avenue, and it reveals some details about what type of tenants they're trying to attract. Interested buyers/brokers are asked if they'd prefer units ranging from $6.8 million to $20+ million, in sizes stepping from 2BR to 5BR. The brokerbabble doesn't hold back either:
In the heart of Manhattan's Upper East Side, a building is rising. If you love New York, it will look familiar. Not just because it echoes the grand apartment towers that made the city famous, but because it was conceived, designed, and built with the passionate attention to detail that was once common in this city, but is now depressingly rare. This is an unequivocally modern structure, but one that provides the comforts of home. This is an address of distinction, but one that sits with confidence among its neighbors. This is, in a world of compromise and imitation, something unique: the real thing. This is 135 East 79 Street. The designer at 135 East 79th is William Sofield, who told the NY Times recently that he's "resuscitated every trade that's about to die," by employing their old world craftsmanship in his design work. That practice is continuing at this current piece of work:
In a new building he designed on East 79th Street for the Brodsky Organization, bricks are being hand-laid, old-school-style, by New York City masons; the door hardware comes from P. E. Guerin, a foundry in the West Village; limestone relief sculptures designed by Mr. Sofield on a clay model in his dining room are being made by an Indiana sculptor from Indiana limestone.
· 135east79 [135east79.com]
· In Defenense of the Decorator [NYT]
· Revealed: Long-Hidden Windows of Lexington Avenue [Curbed]
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