"Central Park Skyline's New Addition; Fifth Ave.'s New (Old) Condos"

Curbed.com

2011-04-25

Joey Arak

Not every hospital development deal in this town is as controversial and slow-moving as St. Vincent’s. As part of a multilayer deal struck with Mount Sinai Medical Center, Durst Fetner Residential took the reins on a new rental tower to be built on 102nd Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues, above the mechanicals that will service a new SOM-designed hospital building. There was some squabbling over whether the new tower would plunge Central Park into darkness, but those fears were overshadowed (pun intended!) by the joy of a new building to draw the eye of park visitors away from the Annenberg Building, aka the Mount Sinai Deathstar. A Curbed tipster dropped by the reservoir during yesterday’s gorgeous spring weather and had this to say: “Am I the only one noticing how fast the tower is going up over at Mt. Sinai?” Yep, until now!

And talk about perfect timing: The Wall Street Journal has a report on the other big part of the deal: Durst Fetner’s purchase and conversion of 1212 Fifth Avenue, a pre-war building that Mount Sinai partially used as an employees’ residence. The 57-unit building will begin formal sales in June, and right now the $47 million renovation is humming along. Changes include new windows, new elevators, new apartment layouts, fresh marble in the lobby and a refurbished brick facade. Like Moses told the Israelites after descended from the top of Mt. Sinai: “Stop praying to that golden calf, jerkwads, and let me teach you the value of condos with pre-war pedigree.” His words were later changed to some mumbo-jumbo about murder and adultery, ruining a perfectly good story.