Gallery Apartments, 32 East 76th Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 32 East 76th Street by Carter Horsley

The Upper East Side west of Park Avenue is generally characterized by luxury buildings with large layouts or conventional small apartments.

The Gallery is one of the rare exceptions. It offers several apartments with very high ceilings and "loft" bedrooms, a kind of unit that was very popular in conversions of some older downtown properties. The "loft" bedrooms are usually accessed by a staircase from the tall living room and are "tucked" over kitchens, bathrooms and closets, but often have very low ceilings and are open and not enclosed from the living room. Such arrangements are popular with many people who like the drama of the high ceiling living room and the general "feel" of a loft, especially after the booming popularity of real "loft" apartments in such downtown neighborhoods as SoHo and TriBeCa.

This mid-block, beige-brick building has the advantage over such downtown lofts of being in one of the city's prime residential areas as it is across the sidestreet from the main entrance to the Carlyle Hotel, one of the swankiest in the city. It is also very convenient to the many famous boutiques and cultural institutions in the vicinity.

This 15-story building, which has a dramatic curved skylit roof, was erected as a condominium in 1983 and has only 32 apartments. The building, which has a doorman and an attractive lobby, has a very distinctive and unusual façade that reflects its unusual layouts. There are some very tall windows and numerous broad, but thin windows. Although its façade is a bit clunky, it is not highly visible as it is adjacent to the somewhat taller and rather attractive condo apartment building on the southeast corner at Madison Avenue.

A local subway station is nearby at 77th Street and Lexington close to Lenox Hill Hospital. There is good cross-town bus service on 79th Street.

Carter B. Horsley