You Can Touch My Tippy Top

So I was driving up the West Side Highway on my way to Westchester the other day. As per usual, I was blasting my radio, rocking out with the sunroof open and casually glancing at my blind spot / the scores of new apartment buildings on the west bank of Manhattan. After I passed the George Washington Bridge but still stuck in insidious traffic, I noticed a building that I never noticed before.

Perched aside the upper rocky ridges of way uptown Manhattan, was this castle-like structure. It didn't look like anything near or around it, and as you can see by its post-war construction red-brick neighbor in the picture at left, I wasn't quite sure that this was actually an apartment.

OMG, was I wrong. I got off at the next exit, somewhere in Inwood, and did a little urban exploration in my SUV. Finally, I found the castle of which I want to be king.

The building sits at the southern end of Chittenden Avenue, on an urban cul-de-sac. No. 16. Turns out, this is WAY more than just an apartment. The building is a private home with a separate apartment on the "bottom" level of the structure. It's a 1 BR, 1 BA with a terrace and views TO DIE FOR. OMG OMG OMG.

Once I got home, I found out that the apartment is actually on the market for a reasonable $3,000 / month rental. That's actually a price tag to go OMG over as well, considering the ample space, huge terrace with tremendous views, and uniqueness of the property. Plus, the building is called "The Pumpkin House" - I mean, doesn't every Cinderella (male or female) want to live in a pumpkin like this? And for a mere $3 million more, you can OWN the ENTIRE building (5 bedroom house atop the 1 bedroom apt.) and sit pretty watching the Hudson River Line. On my drive home, I blasted "New York State Of Mind" followed by "Empire State of Mind," because well, obviously.

Brooklyn Loves Clock

Say what you will, but I have a natural love for Brooklyn. With its older-NYC charm, it was actually a very vibrant city by itself, outshining Manhattan in 1899 when Greater New York City was created, with 5 boroughs. Due to its natural steep shoreline, it was a perfect place to keep shipping and manufacturing; thus, shaping the East River waterfront with turn of the century warehouses.

A lot of these Brooklyn shoreline warehouses were embellished, just like The Clocktower, with decorative timepieces for the hoards of working class heroes moving goods across the Brooklyn docks. About 100 years later, these slight embellishments have meant extra $$$. Another example of such an OMG-worthy timepiece apartment is at The Eagle Warehouse building, at 111 Hicks Street. 

Seen above-left, the red-brick structure sits adjacent to the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage and 1 block away from the East River Waterfront. Its "masthead" features a glass clock (and building name) with an awesome apartment behind it. The Eagle Warehouse was built in the 1880s and housed a local newspaper where Walt Whitman once worked. The building has doormen and a gym in the basement. It was converted into apartment units in the late 1970s, when the area was still undergoing gentrification.

Ready? Get set. O---M---G.

Loft space? Duh. Watch the river and Brooklyn Bridge and mark the time appropriately - through a working clock.

Call the Po Po, Ho!

Back in the day, the Lower East Side was hoppin' with some crazy characters. Infamous from landmarks like Five Points, Doyers Street (known as "Blood Alley" due to heavy gang activity) and the constant re-shifting of impoverished / overpopulated buildings, it seems only logical that the city of New York in the late 1800s would have no other choice but to go over the top and build a grandiose police house. Makes sense. Totally...

Flash to the 1970s. New York City is broke and starts selling off its assets to cover its bankrupt behind. One of the many government buildings being sold was the run down 240 Centre Street Police Building. 10+ years after its sale, the building is transformed and sold as apartment units in 1987 to the paying public.

What made this building so special and so unique, as an apartment building, was its built in horse stables, gigantic gymnasium and training facility, scores of storage facilities for evidence and arsenal, and of course its regal structure and main entrance (if those walls could talk).
  

While the building was subdivided into the usual 1, 2 and 3 bedroom money makers, the one unit that stands above the others is the gymnasium masterpiece.

It was sold for just over $2 million in the late 80s, but took over $18 million to renovate it to its current, and somewhat secretive condition. The top floor apartment sprawls across the structure. While not the biggest apartment in New York City, it certainly is one of the most unique. Measuring in at over 6,000 square feet with 4 bedrooms - the price focus of the apartment is the living room, which was the main gymnasium room of the police building. It's a 60'x40' room, a size that equals or surpasses most single family residential plots in Greater New York. And its ceilings? OMG! 25 foot vaulted ceilings, with skylights. Can we talk?

The apartment was owned by former Bear Stearns Chief Operating Officer, Alvin Einbender. It was put on the market once his company went belly-up for $25 million, in 2009. No doubt he hit the, once very exclusive, Gold Bar club at the base of the building many times during his tenure as a resident.

What time is it?

For some, a trip to Brooklyn is something akin to the dentist - put off at all costs or resisted indefinitely. But for the New Yawka of 2011, it's a place with which to be reckoned.

One of my favorite properties is rumored to be back on the market in DuMBO - 1 Main Street.
Formally a loft space used for manufacturing and shipping of the once bustling Brooklyn waterfront, and built in the early 20th century, 1 Main Street is an iconic structure - standing over 10 stories between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges. Its copper clad roof and glass clock differentiated the industrial building from its mostly red brick counterparts.


Through the latter part of the century, however, the busy Brooklyn waterfront and shipping yards were tamed by a shrinking industry and mass exodus. The neighborhood became run down, gritty, and therefore - an artist colony.

Jump to 1998. GENTRIFICATION TIME Y'ALL!! The artists, photogs and aging hippies that have squatted in the dumpy building by the BQE (and enduring the ever-present "Brooklyn Crackhead") were forced out after a simple sale of the entire property; thus, creating the perfect catalyst for DuMBO Dwellings. Renamed "The Clocktower," 1 Main Street stood out as the first poured concrete, non-Jehova's Witness-owned building in the area that would be habitable.

Sales, re-sales, real estate bubble and POP! Flash to 2011. Here we are. Faced with the most fascinating part of the building: it's 4-faced glass clock. What's behind it you ask? A FREAKIN' APARTMENT! OMG!

But not just any apartment. It's the crown jewel of Vinegar Hill (hush, Vinegar Hill is just a realtor name for DuMBO - for those in favor of the ethical treatment of animal pseudonyms). A real life triplex with the post-card views of New York City that no Manhattanite can ever achieve, since nobody in Manhattan can view Manhattan across the East River with all of the famous bridges (B, M, W).

Priced at $25 Million right before the market peaked, this bad boy has SICK written all over it - in Roman numerals no less, and two - make that eight hands total to accentuate its awesomeness.

• Four 14 foot high round clocks
• A glass-walled elevator & a 3-story floating staircase at the center of the space
• 3,000 sq ft main floor with 16-ft high ceilings
• 2,300 sq ft 2nd floor with three bedrooms
• 988 sq ft 3rd floor open loft with a 15-ft ceilings
• Top “crow’s nest”: A staircase that goes to the top of the building.

Of course, @ $25mm, this apartment has enough solariums to make George Costanza take a second look - and consider moving to Brooklyn.

Welcome to OMGisThatAnAPT.com!

As New Yorkers, we sometimes become jaded toward odd living conditions. We've seen it all - from eat-in kitchen/bathrooms, to foyer-bedrooms, the city that never sleeps certainly holds some of the world's most interesting habitats. At OMGisThatAnAPT.com, we are committed to the urban exploration to shed light on some of these fascinating domiciles.

While we aren't affiliated with any real estate company, our undying passion for the quirkiness of the industry allows us to open doors (pun intended) to some of the most awe-inspiring, rarely available apartments in the city, And who knows - if you, our reader, strikes while the iron is hot - you may just be able to live in the nest of your dreams! OMG wouldn't that be AWESOME?!