Carnegie Hill: Left Bank in Manhattan

In 1999, local preservation groups in Carnegie Hill rallied against the construction of a 17-story apartment tower over a Citibank branch on Madison Avenue and 91st Street.

Among the residents affected by the proposed new development was Woody Allen, whose garden behind his townhouse would likely have been cast in shadow by the new building. During several rounds of hearings by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which included a short film by Allen on behalf of the cause, the building s height was reduced to 10 floors.

Now, Allen and the building are parting ways. In September, the director put his massive Carnegie Hill townhouse on the market for a whopping $27 million, nearly twice as high as the second-priciest property for sale in the area. The double-wide townhouse has 22 rooms and six bedrooms over five floors.

Meanwhile, the once-disputed condominium at 47 East 91st St. is nearing completion. “Occupancy should be in around eight months or so,” said Daniela Kunen, a managing director at Douglas Elliman. The new building has full-floor apartments with five bedrooms, with prices starting at $5.4 million and going up to $14.5 million for the penthouse duplex.

While Kunen said the 10-story building is “going to be low” and that the style is “in keeping with the 1920s prewar charm in the area”, the debate that previously surrounded it highlights many of the fundamental qualities of Carnegie Hill, one of the city s most expensive communities. (Other recent projects include The Gatsby, at 96th Street, finished last year, and The Metropolitan, which is being completed at the eastern edge of the neighborhood.)

Carnegie Hill is roughly bounded by 86th and 98th Streets, and Fifth and Third Avenues, and features a low skyline with lots of light. Its village-like feel makes it “more of a neighborhood than any other area in Manhattan,” said Kunen, who has lived and sold real estate there for the last 22 years.

“Once you get there, you feel you re away,” said Pamela Barnes-Moses, managing director of Corcoran s Carnegie Hill office. “You don t feel the hubbub of downtown.” Others say the area s “old-world feeling” makes it “a bit like the Left Bank.”

The area, above all, is a family neighborhood. There are many public and private schools, including the highly ranked P.S. 6, Spence, St. Bernard s, Dalton, Nightingale-Bamford, the Convent of the Sacred Heart and St. David s. Barnes-Moses said the most demand for apartments in Carnegie Hill comes from “the 35-to-50 year-old group who have expanding families,” a slightly older group than the average family in the city. That s likely a result of the higher prices for apartments in the area.

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Not that there are many apartments to choose from. Cornelia Zagat Eland, executive vice president for sales at Stribling & Associates, said inventory for family apartments is currently very low. “You can count it on one hand,” she said. “There is just not the inventory to meet the need.” For the small number of apartments that are being sold, some of the prices have been “sensational,” she said. “These are family apartments, not necessarily grandoise and still needing work, and they have gotten astonishingly high prices.”

Barnes-Moses pointed out that for a while, some categories of apartments were sitting on the market, but that has changed. “For a while, estate sales were sitting nine room apartments where everything needs work,” she said. “In the springtime, things started to get busy again. We had such a busy summer.” Now, “if it s priced properly, it s sold right away,” she said.

Kunen said the average price going east from Carnegie Hill, from Third Avenue or so, currently ranges from around 800 to $1,200 a square foot. Inside Carnegie Hill, she couldn t provide an average, but said two examples were representative. One was a 3,200 square foot apartment on Park Avenue in the 90s that was in poor condition and requiring gut renovation 90s that sold for $3 million, or $937 a square foot. The other was a 3,800 square foot apartment in good condition on Park Avenue in the that went for $5.8 million, or $1,526 per square foot.

The average size of an apartment in the neighborhood is between 2,000 and 3,000 square feet, because many apartments were built in the 1920s at a time when apartments were in more direct competition with townhouses as a place for the wealthy to live. The area has been a prime spot for the well-to-do since the days of Andrew Carnegie, who gave the area its name. Carnegie built a 64-room brick and limestone mansion at the corner of 91st Street and Fifth Avenue in 1902, which is now the Cooper-Hewitt museum.

Two new projects, both condominiums, are now being completed in an area that lacks for them. 47 East 91st St., which was scaled down after community concerns by Allen and others, is a needed addition to the neighborhood, said Eland. “There is a place for that kind of thing,” she said, saying it would serve buyers with big incomes who don t necessarily have the assets to pass co-op boards in the area.

Another project, The Metropolitan, is being completed at 90th Street and Third Avenue. The 32-story building is “selling quite well,” Barnes-Moses said.

While the project, which includes one-to four-bedroom apartments, is being marketed to families, agents seemed divided about whether families will make up the bulk of buyers there. Barnes-Moses said two recent deals included a wealthy couple from out-of-state buying a pied-a-terre there, and a young man who bought an apartment.

The quiet neighborhood has a mix of sophisticated restaurants and informal places that welcome kids, as well as plenty of baby shops and other retail. Doing errands is perhaps more social than the rest of the city. “The shopkeepers know everyone,” said Kunen. It s also not uncommon to run into celebrity residents like Paul Newman, Bette Middler Kevin Kline, or even Woody Allen – at least as long as his townhouse remains on the market.

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