Wow, I couldn't disagree more. The Upper East Side couldn't be further from middle class.Originally Posted by pianoman11686
Bay Ridge is middle class. The Upper East Side is the wealthiest urban neighborhood in the U.S., and probably among the wealthiest neighborhoods on earth.
Papaya King might not have been so ridiculously out-of-place decades ago, when East 86th had an earthy German and Czech feel, but it now looks amazingly incongruous.
I'll be thrilled when those dumpy buildings are demolished.
I assume that the only people in the area who want it to remain grungy are people who live in rent-regulated apartments. People spending millions of dollars on condos want it to be nice.
Anyway, I respect your opinion.
By the way, I highly recommend trips to London and Paris. They are model cities that we should strive to emulate.
^
Exactly. The new owners are not going to spend their money at a terrible hot dog stand. Bring on the bulldozers (please!).
ASchwarz, when you get a chance, take the M86 bus off rush-hour. The people on that bus are not the people that live on 5th and Park Avenues, which I'm sure disproportionately skew the average household incomes for the entire Upper East Side. Or, you could just stand on the sidewalk for a few hours at a time (I've done this on a few occasions, for an unrelated reason). You don't see tourists, and you don't see wealthy. You see ordinary New Yorkers going about their business.
The area I'm talking about is more Yorkville than Carnegie Hill, and yes, it still has good penetration by various ethnicities. The very fact that low-key retail still exists and thrives in an area with such high street traffic confirms the identity of the neighborhood, and serves it well.
Would I lead a campaign to preserve Papaya King or some of the cheap one-story stores if they were threatened with demolition? Hell, no. Would I even be saddened if they left? Probably not. I just don't see the rationale in making the entire place go upscale just because a couple of new high-end condos appeared.
A few months ago, I was watching Hannah and Her Sisters, portions of which were filmed in SoHo in the early 80's. It was so dilapidated and sad looking. Today, by contrast, it is pristine and magnificent. I can't imagine anyone missing its forlorn past.
By the same token, in the early 90's, I went out with someone who lived near 86th and Lex. We went to the theatre on 86th one night, and it, like the whole area, was a rough dump. Ten years from now when this area has improved dramatically, it will be for the better.
P.S.: It's sad that Gershon Barnett razed some very nice buildings on the site of the Lucida when there's a lot of trash in that area (e.g., Gray's) that should have been redeveloped.
Yeah, I know the 86th Street corridor looks more economically diverse than the rest of the Upper East Side, but that's only because it is one of the city's busiest transit hubs. The subway station is one of the city's 10 busiest, and obviously draws from the the city's huge diversity.
This is true of any subway station in any neighborhood (the demographics of the neighborhood will be somewhat hidden by the overall demographics of the subway ridership). A very poor neighborhood will look more prosperous close to transit hubs, while a very rich neighborhood will look slightly more diverse close to transit hubs.
The fact remains that the Upper East Side as a whole is a rich neighborhood in 2007. You need tons of money to buy a family-sized unit, and the neighborhood caters to the rich moreso than any neighborhood I have seen on earth (Mayfair and Knightsbridge in London comes the closest).
I am not just talking about Fifth/Madison/Park. There's big money on East End Avenue and around Gracie Square and the rest of the Upper East Side has become MUCH more upmarket in recent years. I've only been in NYC for a few years, and even I notice the big changes along the main avenues and along 86th Street.
Your point about transit playing a factor is well-taken, but I still argue there's a substantial difference between the incomes of residents living on either side of Park Avenue. And despite the transit factor, I have always thought that retail west of Park is more upscale than east of Park. This includes restaurants: there are still a lot of fast food places on 86th street and up and down Lex, 3rd and 2nd avenues. Another perfect illustration: Dean and Deluca opened a store a few years ago on 85th and Madison; Gristedes operates on 86th between Park and Lex.
On a more anecdotal level, I know that Yorkville and the northern reaches of the upper East Side are still heavily populated by recent college grads, and I've read that many middle-level professionals still live there. Will this change over time? Probably: you'll see more luxury developments and conversions, all other things equal. But for now, that stretch of 86th street is not upscale, and needn't be - no matter how much ballyhoo is made over the arrival of the Lucida and Brompton.
London: you'd be surprised to find out then, that many people hate the current incarnation of SoHo as an upscale shopping mall, and miss the grit of its predecessor. I'm not one of those people. But I am of the belief that New York stands fine on its own in comparison to great cities like Paris and London. They both inherited a legacy of high-quality architecture in their building stock, that spans wealthy and not-so-wealthy neighborhoods. New York will probably never look like Paris, but it doesn't have to.
Oh lord...londonlawyer, I thought I went through this same debate not too long ago with you on some other thread about Canal St.
Are you being snobbish again and comparing everything to London this or London that?
Haven't we done this before?
The most expensive neighborhoods in New York are downtown, and have been for some time.
Pound for pound -- in other words, in terms of average price per square foot. -- the most expensive zip codes in New York are 10007 and 10013, not 10021 and 10028.
I suppose one could argue that the Upper East Side's exclusivity -- it's dominated by co-ops -- depresses its price.
But still:
Average price per square foot, co-ops and condos, Upper East Side: $1,187
Average price per square foot, co-ops and condos, SoHo + Tribeca: $1,391
ali r.
{downtown broker}
*data from Miller Samuel, of course
I think one of the reasons the price per square foot is reduced in the UES is the fact that there were so many co-ops built or springing from buildings built in the 1970s and early 80s. Most of these are utilitarian at best, and some of them look simply awful. For the most part anything nice goes for quite a bit up here, but there's a significant percentage of units that aren't so nice, or at least are in not so nice buildings.
Having said all that, the UES has always been divided into West of Third and East of Third (with exceptions for certain Carnegie Hill addresses), but it seems as though the developers are doing their best to change that now.
Not really. Uptown's still overwhelmingly where the money's at. And this is coming from someone who prefers downtown. There's far more wealth around the Park than there will ever be downtown.
You are comparing apples and oranges. Can't compare zip codes, because the uptown zip codes can have ten times the population. Can't compare sales prices, because much of the wealthiest downtown neighborhoods have nothing but giant new condo lofts, while the wealthiest uptown neighborhoods have every type of living space (well, excepting lofts).
Neighborhoods like Tribeca and Soho had almost nothing built until recently, while the Upper East Side and Upper West Side have been established for nearly a century. This means you are comparing brand new stuff downtown with stuff built over a century uptown. IMO you can't compare Tribeca loft conversions with postwar white brick studios.
Much of the downtown market consists of giant luxury lofts, while much of the uptown market consists of soaring towers with hundreds of units. Not at all comparable.
Also, the best buildings uptown tend to be coops, while the best buildings downtown tend to be condos.
Uptown neighborhoods are considerably denser and have more of every type of living space (excepting lofts).
If you look where high-worth individuals reside, they are overwhelmingly uptown, and particularly on the East Side, especially west of Lexington and around East End Avenue/Gracie Square. Even 1st/2nd/3rd/York has a pretty high density of wealthy individuals (certainly higher than most of downtown).
Since this was just posted on the Sota Wall website, it's likely this is starting soon. They say the design is now by Costas Kondylis but still show DBB's rendering, so maybe a different design.While I despise Solow because he wants to raze a magnificent building on 57th St., I found a rendering of a surprising decent building that he's developing on York and 65th:
Last edited by Derek2k3; December 17th, 2007 at 04:28 AM.
I take your point that it is a little "apples and oranges" -- the Upper East Side is so big, and so dense, that it is hard to compare anything to it.
It would be fun if some publication like the Observer would do a heat map of billionaires, or something.
That said, anecdotally one can argue (and I am) that wealthy individuals no longer congregate in their old roost the way they did. Four of ten of Forbes' top sales of the year were on the Upper East Side, but two were in the Plaza (10019) and one in 15 Central Park West (10023).
The One York sale didn't make the list -- I don't know if because it hasn't closed or because the number wasn't high enough -- but it is pretty shocking to those of us who lived in the city even five years ago to see a $30 million sale a stone's throw from Chinatown.
I agree the UES is older and therefore has its money somewhat fossilized, which hurts it on a psf comparison basis, but per square foot is still worth something.
Also, no one is going to drastically reshape the UES inventory by taking out 740 Park and condo-izing it, but it is worth noting that new la-di-da UES condo buildings (which is where I think this discussion started) have not exhibited the pull of 40 Mercer or the Jean Nouvel building on West 19th.
To me (and I freely admit that I'm biased) we are seeing a shift of where wealth lives that is equivalent to the post-War shift from townhouses and mansions to "good" apartment buildings.
ali r.
{downtown broker}
I don't think we disagree that much. Keep in mind, however, that the new "la di da" UES apartment buildings are usually on York, 1st, 2nd or 3rd Avenues, rather than on the top-tier avenues. Tough to compare a highrise condo tower on 1st Avenue with prime Tribeca or Soho.
New towers on the prime parts of the UES would generate tremendous prices. For example, if/when that Foster building goes up near the Carlyle, you will probably have the priciest building in NYC history. There's another building going up in the low 60's between Madison/Park. I think this one might also break records.
If you could somehow build a full-block building on Fifth or Park, you would probably get even higher prices.
The Jasper website has been updated beyond just a registration page and I must say that it looks gorgeous. I love the "lodge-like" feel of it. Looks very cozy and quaint. Check it out. The floor plans are on there as well, and if you hit "calculate" after viewing the plan of your choice, you get the current price. Mid floors are coming in around 1150/sq ft.
Last edited by Peteynyc1; December 19th, 2007 at 07:35 PM.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks