Now That’s a City View

Seems like the biggest advantage of living in One Madison Park is ... you don't have to look at One Madison Park.

Kudos to all the courageous window washers whose work is on display here.

It's ironic how ugly the interiors of these buildings are. If you are going to have an iconic view, why not make a bit more effort of beds, sofas and tables?

On a clear day our home of long ago in Throgs Neck the Bronx has a great far view of Mannhattan, as do many of the home that line the water front of Silver Beach. Check it out.

Do any of the seller agents know how to make a bed? Geesh. You would think for that kind of commission they'd try a little harder for the photos.

P.S. With the shades drawn during the day, 12 months a year.

I lived in the world's tiniest two bedroom just down Garfield Place from 35 Prospect Park West back in the mid 80s. As I like to say, it was Park Slope before it became PARK SLOPE. :-) What a terrific neighborhood it was back then...perfect for a just out of college kid working downtown. #LifetimeAgo

The subject we sublet in a hi-rise, during our renovation, had full windows with unimpeded southern exposures. We anticipated brilliant views, instead we had untenable thermal 4 seasons a year during daylight hours. Bleached rugs and furniture, running the air conditioning 12 months a year. Couldn’t wait to leave the hot box. Don’t be fooled the hype.

I was born and raised at 353 Cypress Avenue, the Bronx. We had 3 windows in the little two room apartment. The first was in the kitchen overlooking the courtyard to the main entrance. The other two windows were in the bedroom where 4 of us, my parents, my sister and I slept. From the courtyard window we could see all the people coming and going as well as kids playing on the stoop. We knew all of our neighbors. From the bedroom windows, which actually faced Cypress Avenue and PS 65 there was an even more wonderful view of the neighborhood. We could see the concrete playground of PS 65 and the small garden inside the fenced in area. There were always kids playing stickball, or blindman's bluff or in the winter throwing snowballs. During summer thunderstorms we'd sometimes sit on the fire escape in order to cool down from the city heat. Give me the "Bright, packed and bustling, city views" of my childhood and keep the "bling". Some folks may not understand this, but although we had, literally nothing, in fact we had everything. In today's world no one sits outside on folding wooden chairs outside apartments gently rocking a carriage with a little one inside while watching the 4 and 5 year olds playing games on the sidewalks. The ice cream and pizza truck no longer come by. Nor does the horse drawn ragman's truck. With a pice of chalk we could draw a "potty" and play hopscotch. Or we'd ride our tricycles and bicycles too. I lived in a real city in a real neighborhood.

Yeah, well, we all knew that already -- of course "city view" becomes more truthful when you have a bunch of money to spend. What's the point of bringing up the specter of a brick-wall view when the rental market you are addressing need never consider such plebeian occurrences?

I could definitely take my chances of having to walk down 20 flights in a blackout to live in that apartment on Madison Square.

The Brooklyn penthouse has great vintage charm. Sadly, the co-op board does not allow dogs. That is A deal-breaker in my book.

Gosh, back in the 1960s and 1970s my aunt and uncle had a terrific--and much cheaper-- "city view" from their 15th floor apartment in Luna Park!

I live in the Bronx with a view of the East River and the Manhattan skyline. We call our neighborhood “a poor man’s paradise. “

My former residence in Fort Lee NJ had heart stopping views. At a fraction of NYC prices. Problem of course was that, while you could practically spit on Manhattan, the clogged local streets and GW Bridge or Lincoln Tunnel traffic made for a punishing commute. Lesson is that when thinking about affordable housing consider how transit improvements can open up supply. Contrast prices in Ft Lee with Jersey City and Hoboken, where the PATH zips u into Manhattan.

Okay, so I'm not sure who this piece is by but: NEWSFLASH - Staten Island - my hometown - has FANTASTIC views of Manhattan from the St. George, New Brighton and other areas. I can personally attest to this fact since I went to high school on Richmond Terrace - which borders the NY Harbor - and I used to sit and daydream while looking out at the city and the sea commerce.

While I will never live in one of these aeries, I celebrate that they are still there for some to live in and for various photogs to allow us to visit ever-so-briefly.

I'm sorry. The interiors are worthy of recognition. The NY "City views" are hardly worth noting other than a few buildings shown in the 36 photos. Face it, the city is overcrowded and expensive. Personal security is a luxury missed by many. The police force is recognized because of its egregious behavior. What a great place to live.

We live on the Lower East Side, in a 4-bldg./20-story co-op complex a half-block from the East River. It was built in the mid-'50s as middle-class housing and there was a requirement that apts. had to be sold back to the co-op for the original purchase price. All of that changed in the mid-'90s when reality hit; very costly improvements were needed (such as new roofs) and therefore a very contentious decision was made to sell apts. on the open market - and then a % of the profits went to the corporation for needed repairs & improvements. I'd long known of this complex (and another one nearby) - and when we decided to move back to NYC, we attended an Open House and bought our apt. on the spot. We're on the 18th floor, and we have a *280-sq. ft. terrace* off of our living rm. Further, we have a view that stretches all the way from Williamsburg to nearly the Chrysler Building (i.e.; it includes 2 bridges, the Statue of Liberty, all of Lower Manhattan [including in particular the WTC, which we watched being built], the Empire State Bldg. and much more). What makes this particularly incredible is that we'll *always* have an unobstructed view, because there are about a mile's worth of housing projects beginning next to our bldg. Obviously many people would choose not to live in this type of locale, although the only issues are (and usually only in summer & not daily) noise at night. We paid $695,000 for a renovated one-bedroom in early 2005 and we're eternally thankful.

I just walked back from my corner bedroom in my hilltopp seventh floor corner apartment here in Elmhurst. From there I can see the Manhattan skyline from the new One World Trade Center north to about 80th Street and the tops of the downtown Brooklyn high rises. At night I see the lights of the cars going up and over the new Kosziusko bridge. From my desk I look at the planes coming into LaGuardia and the busy traffic on our street that is a bus route and an ambulance run to Elmhurst Hospital which looms as a pile over the more local landscape. I worry a bit when there is more than one siren-blaring vehicle. For someone who isn't very mobile due to balance issues these windows on the wider world are precious. In an earlier life I llived on East 45th Street in a lovely buildding with a health club downstairs and literally views of a brick wall. That was fine then but would be a nightmare now.

I’m in one of those apartment buildings just in the Fort Lee side of the George Washington Bridge. I don’t face the city. I face west in my 20th floor apartment. I can see 25 miles west and all the way down to Newark Airport. I have beautiful sunsets and magnificent thunderstorms that roll west to east. Not a wrap around apartment. Just nothing else blocking my view. I don’t need to see the city. I used to live there and saw all the way south and the east river.

A room with a view. Reminds me of a friend's rooftop apartment on W. 23rd St. many years ago. Fantastic East-West-North-South views. The whole package...plus the panorama view from the bathroom window. Sitting there on the throne doing what you needed to do you got a front row seat, the window framing the Empire State Building in all its glory. Particularly spectacular it was at nighttime all lit up in 1976 for the Bicentennial Year.

I think of these apartments as luxury storage boxes for humans, stacked up one upon the other, with other humans looking back at them from their boxes. I am grateful that I can step out of my door, barefoot, onto grass. At night I hear the trees, and tawny owls calling. My wake-up call is the dawn song of the blackbird. City life made me feel cut off from what mattered: connection with the earth, and the other lives that share it.

When I was growing up, we lived for a time in one of the 18th floor penthouses at 101 Lafayette Avenue in Brooklyn. Beautiful old Art Deco building, not a huge apartment but it had a wraparound terrace and awesome views. I learned to tell time from the Williamsburg Savings Bank clock tower. Loved that apartment!

When you climb a mountain and reach the top, the view is there as a reward for the brief time of your visit. It becomes part of your memory and the brevity makes it special. Having a view out your window all the time is pleasant enough but its permanence diminishes its value.

I live in a "red brick rental with shabby balconies" in Riverdale. Riverdale is one of the last places in the city where the middle class people can afford decent housing. My building is probably not the one mentioned here, it's a few blocks from the Solaria. But I take offense. My building is diverse: Orthodox Jews, Latinos, Whites, Blacks, older long-time residents, families with small children. The doorman helps unload groceries from our car and the super calls us by our names. My bedroom is bigger than a cupboard and we park in a garage. It doesn't have a 360-degree view, but sometimes there are other priorities.

We have a house on the "bench" (the ancient shoreline of Lake Bonneville--a prehistoric pluvial lake that covered much of the eastern part of North America's Great Basin region) in Salt Lake City, Utah. At 900 ft above the valley floor and with nothing but the steep slopes of the 9,000 ft Mount Olympus Wilderness behind us we have commanding view of the entire valley and almost every night we have a spectacular sunset view and the city lights twinkle far off below. Deer, bobcat, rabbits, moose and hawk wander by the backyard (entertaining our Westie pup who we safely keep an eagle-eye on whenever she's out back). In the winter we watch huge storms roll into the valley that produce intense snowfall, sometimes leaving 3 or 4 feet of snow overnight in my driveway. (Yes, I have big snowblower.) Winters also produces inversions whereby colder air (and pollution) is trapped by the valley giving us a view that looks like a lake of clouds below. The best powder skiing in the world at four resorts--Alta/Snowbird/Brighton/Solitude is a 25 minute drive up the nearby canyons. Purchased in 2008 for $370,000, and so far up on the mountain slope with literally no one behind us we have almost zero traffic and no city noise. It's the best of both worlds: city life with grocery stores and a freeway access five minutes away and spectacular hiking and wildlife in the backyard. We love our home.

Midtown rezoning is going to disrupt a lot of those prized city views to create bland glass office space for commuter drones. Caveat emptor.

Wow, some of the views are eye popping - just as the prices of these units. I live in a penthouse of some 3,000 sq. Ft. With 3 bedrooms, 4 baths. A sitting room and a dining room separated by a gas fired remotely operated fireplace. An isolated kitchen so huge that it can accommodate a breakfast table. And comes a servants room with her own bathroom attached to the kitchen. A huge balcony with gas powered BBQ grill. The balcony offers floor to ceiling city views with the best thing of airplanes taking off to cruising levels at night time in distance. My bedroom offers morning views of mountains - Andes, no less. Some mornings, clouds are rolling over the top from a floor to ceiling window. And I rent all this for less than $3,000 per month - in Bogota, Colombia. I moved into this unit on the 6th floor May 1 - and would not trade for nothing. I would not want to move too high - like say above 10th floor because everything down below looks so miniature. I lived on 22nd floor in Jakarta but hated it so much - I moved out in a couple of months. For me to live in an apartment, it must have a balcony - otherwise, it is just too suffocatimg. Two years back, I lived in London. My London apartment was as big as the balcony in my Bogota apartment. But the saving grace was a tiny balcony - large enough for a small Weber. Without this balcony, I would have gone crazy in the noisy London apartment.