A new residence is being built on the corner of 86th Street and West End Avenue (by Extell), which can’t be ignored. It will be 22 stories and have one apartment per floor of about 8500 square feet each (!) I hope this finally gives people enough room for closets. Also, each unit will have extra sized kitchens making it very attractive for families that keep kosher, if that indeed is the builder’s intent on this avenue with a large Jewish population.

Each apartment will cost about $14,000,000. So much for a real estate slump, not here! I am sure the units will be sold and probably very quickly too.

This is an ideal location, close to Riverside Park on the Hudson River, one block from Broadway shopping and transportation, on WestEnd Avenue.

West End is a quiet, old world, elegant avenue lined with pre-war, doorman buildings. On Shabbat and Jewish holidays, families stroll to the local synagogues. The building height matches the surrounding buildings and the size and price of each unit is in it’s own category. There is nothing else like this to my knowledge on this avenue.

Most interesting is that diagonally across the street from this incredible building is the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew, which is a small, liberal Methodist congregation dedicated to possitive interfaith and social action. It also houses the West Side Campaign Against Hunger, a supermarket style food pantry which helps provide food for about 900 needy families per year. Also, Congregation B’nai Jeshurun (West 88th Street) meets in this church for Saturday morning services and for holiday overflow services. The church building is in poor shape and the congregation hopes to renovate and sell it’s air rights to secure income for it’s future, a plan that has been opposed by some community groups.

Perhaps the future condo owners of 535 West End can be convinced to become respected community neighbors by keeping the needs of the pantry in mind. This season the shelves became quite bare and the local synagogues and churches asked their members to donate (checks not food) in order to restock the shelves. Helping to support this pantry certainly would cost the new owners only a fraction of the cost of a small closet and would do a great deal of good for the needy and for their respect in the neighborhood.

 PS: See the comments for more about the neighborhood and the UPDATE AND PHOTO on the March 20, 2008 posting.