REDISCOVERING CATHEDRAL PARKWAY (original) (raw)
https://www.nytimes.com/1985/05/05/realestate/rediscovering-cathedral-parkway.html
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- May 5, 1985
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May 5, 1985
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Section 8, Page
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UNTIL recently, the idea of selling a renovated one-bedroom apartment in a tired old building at 110th Street and Amsterdam Avenue for $150,000 would have seemed preposterous to most residents of the mostly middle-income neighborhood. To many of them, it still does, but they're getting used to the idea.
The reason: Aaron Ziegelman. Mr. Ziegelman, a major building converter who specializes in what he calls ''next-to-emerge neighborhoods,'' came here two-and-a-half years ago with his partner, William K. Langfan, and began buying, renovating and converting old apartment buildings that had seen little investment for many years. On a single block of 110th, between Amsterdam and Broadway, for example, the partners now own four buildings and are negotiating for a fifth.
Last year, they converted the first two of those buildings into a condominium, and the second conversion is now in progress. The converted buildings, at 504 and 510 West 110th, are distinguished from their neighbors on the block by a new shared lobby and a 24-hour doorman - the only one on the block.
But the converted buildings have also been distinguished by a surprisingly strong demand for condominium housing in this long-neglected and still partly blighted section of Manhattan, which lies between Manhattan Valley to the south and Morningside Heights to the north. The conversions have also tapped into the stream of rapid price increases that are common throughout much of the Upper West Side, a fact that has gradually won over many tenants who were at first hostile to the idea of conversion.
At 504 and 510 West 110th Street - on a stretch of the street renamed Cathedral Parkway in honor of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, at the corner of Amsterdam and 110th - many tenant-buyers at the block's first conversion have seen the value of their apartments double since they bought earlier this year. Insider prices were about 60,000thenforatypicalone−bedroominthetwobuildings.Outsidersarenowpayingupwardsof60,000 then for a typical one-bedroom in the two buildings. Outsiders are now paying upwards of 60,000thenforatypicalone−bedroominthetwobuildings.Outsidersarenowpayingupwardsof120,000 for unrenovated apartments, some of which still have peeling paint, rotting window frames and cracked wooden flooring. Renovated apartments are fetching between 140,000and140,000 and 140,000and150,000.
What makes the conversions and the prices at the Ziegelman projects even more remarkable is that they are being achieved even without the presence of a large new construction project further east on 110th Street that real estate industry experts have long said was a key to the resurgence of the area. The project, a 599-unit moderate-income condominium at the northwest corner of Central Park at Douglass Circle and 110th Street, a joint private and public venture, failed to get financing earlier this year from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
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