The 10 Year Plan: Movin' On Up!

We are fortunate to live in a great location in Manhattan. The selection was a mixture of luck, good fortune and serendipity.

While our location is great, it is not perfect. Nothing ever is. As you know already, we live on the noisiest street in NYC, East 59th. The noise is now increasing.

Across the street from our building, a new high-rise tower is being constructed. Construction is everywhere in NYC: new buildings; a new subway line; road, bridge, subway and utility repairs; all types of renovation and refurbishment and so on. So, we could not have found a neighborhood that was a construction-free zone. All of this activity is a good albeit noisy sign.

The building across the street will rise 35 stories over the next two-plus years. Right now, the site is a hole in the ground but construction activity has begun in earnest.

We thought it would be fun to track the progress and share it with you for as long as we live here.

So, let's get started.

First, some basic information.

Address: 200 East 59th Street
Height: 490 feet
Retail: On ground/lower floors plus underground
Residential: 67 units, approx. 1,500 sf per unit, each with a terrace
Site acquisition cost: $100M

Next, some photos of what used to be on the site.

Long ago: The site is located at the southeast corner of 59 St. and Third Avenue, at the far left of the photo above. The photo was taken about 1953 looking south along the Third Avenue El from the 59th Street Station, a/k/a the Bloomingdale's Station.