The Real Deal New York

If ever a New York development deserved the word city in its name, its LeFrak City.

Developed throughout the 1960s (the last parts were in place by the start of the following decade), it covers 40 acres and contains 20 apartment buildings housing more than 5,000 units as well as retail, government offices (the New York Police Department has its medical division in LeFrak City), a public library branch and numerous public plazas and parks.

LeFrak Citys official address is 96-02-96-40 57th Avenue in Queens, though it basically dominates entire swaths of that boroughs Elmhurst and Corona neighborhoods, near where the Long Island Expressway meets Queens Boulevard.

It was conceived by Samuel LeFrak as a firm outpost of middle-class, but market-rate housing. This was at a time, before New Yorks late-20th-century economic nadir in the 1970s, when Manhattan was pricing out many such residents. The development, though still affordable by New York City standards 50 years on, features amenities such as those parks and plazas and in-building laundry facilities. Several one-bedrooms were available in early spring 2015 for under $1,600 a month.

LeFrak City is one of the most prominent parts of a LeFrak Organization portfolio that includes more than 40 million square feet of residential, commercial and retail holdings nationwide.

-TA