Rounding out Museum Mile

African art venue heads to 1280 Fifth

Avenue, and brings along a condo

From the May issue: The building under construction at 1280 Fifth Avenue weaves together two story lines: a museum finally finding a home and a new Fifth Avenue condo in Harlem.

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Designed by starchitect Robert A.M. Stern, the building’s basket-weave skin recalls an aesthetic of some African art, an element meant to speak to its future occupant, the Museum of African Art. And the building sits along a roundabout at 110th Street and Fifth Avenue, a spot certain to lure in buyers eager to live near Museum Mile and across the street from Central Park.

The developer understood “that it was extremely important that [the building] have extraordinary architectural integrity,” said Nancy Packes, president of Brown Harris Stevens Project Marketing, which was brought on to sell 1280 Fifth Avenue. “It’s a museum in the base of the building; it’s not an Equinox.” [more]