Building: 205 East 69th Street

205 East 69th Street is a red-brick and limestone cooperative apartment house built in 1929, designed in the Neo-Classical style. Standing 9 stories tall plus penthouses, 205 East 69th Street has 112 feet of frontage on East 69th Street between Third and Second Avenues. Now sandwiched between two orange-brick post war buildings, the rustic brickwork and simple limestone details on the building’s facade serve as an anchor to the block’s aesthetic ensemble.

Plans were filed for the building’s construction in April of 1928 by the firm Sugarman & Berger, with an estimated cost of construction at $400,000. M. H. Sugarman, a previous American Institute of Architects Award Winner, designed The New Yorker Hotel and Philadelphia’s Mayfair Hotel, and was brought in as consulting architect during One Fifth Avenue’s construction. For this project, Sugarman & Berger used a rusticated limestone base, complete with centered Corinthian pilasters projecting from the ground to the 3rd floor windows, which support a planted balconette and frame the main entryway. On the outside flanks of the facade, there are similar Corinthian pilasters running from the 2nd to 4th floors. Other neoclassical details in limestone on the facade include festoons, swags, urns, and pediments atop the 9th floor windows.

Sugarman & Berger’s interior layouts called for floors 1 through 9 to consist of 7 apartments each floor. The A and C lines were the original “Classic 6” apartments; both of these lines face South and toward 69th Street. The B, D, and G lines were the original 1-bedroom apartments. The F and E lines were designed as the studios, and both of those apartment lines face the North. There are additional penthouse units with roof terraces.

The building was converted to a cooperative in the early 1980’s, and currently provides residents with a 24-hour doorman, a fitness room, private storage facilities, and a laundry room. Washer dryers are allowed in apartments, and so are pets! The 4% flip tax is payable by the seller, and the building allows for 75% financing.

Description provided by: Christian Emanuel