From left: 740 Park Avenue, 834 Fifth Avenue, 4 East 66th Street and 2 East 67th Street
From the June issue: Like mushrooms, glass-walled condos and fancy rentals with wine storage popped up with fury across the city in recent years, and seemed to fundamentally alter New York’s housing stock in the process.
No longer would the pinnacle of city living be the exclusive Uptown co-ops that had ruled the roost for decades, the trend seemed to suggest, but instead this new crop of buildings with impressive architecture and an A-to-Z range of luxuries. It didn’t hurt that they were a lot easier to get into.
Indeed, why would a buyer subject himself (or herself) to invasive co-op board packages and taxing interviews, the thinking went, when that buyer could get just as nice a home without having to trot out reference letters galore?
But then a funny thing happened when the recession hit: Many condos tanked in value, in part because their open-door policy was seen as exposing them to risks like job-challenged residents missing maintenance payments. Meanwhile, co-ops, whose residents are required to have deep cash reserves, generally weren’t so hard-hit. [more]
