By Lucie Levine, Thu, October 10, 2019 Jacob Ruppert’s Knickerbocker Beer, 1912, via Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division
If you spent the first weekend of October hoisting lager and Oomph-ing it up for Oktoberfest, then you joined a long and proud tradition of German beer production and consumption in New York City. In fact, New York’s German-owned breweries were once the largest beer-making operations in the country, and the brewers themselves grew into regional and national power-players, transforming Major League Baseball, holding elected office, and, perhaps most importantly, sponsoring goat beauty pageants in Central Park. While brewing flourished in both Manhattan and Brooklyn throughout the 19th century, the city’s largest breweries were clustered in Yorkville. In fact, much of the neighborhood’s storied German cultural history can be traced to the rise of brewing in the area, and the German-language shops, cultural institutions and social halls that sprang up to cater to the brewery workers.
Get more Hopping History Here!
By Lucie Levine, Wed, November 7, 2018 Yorkville Theater, 86th Street between Lexington and Third, via Wikimedia
Yorkville has been a popular outpost for the young professional crowd for quite some time now, but thanks to the Second Avenue Subway opening two years ago, the neighborhood has been getting on everyone’s radar. But long before the cool subway mosaics, new building developments, and constantly-popping-up restaurants and bars, Yorkville had a diverse history that spanned more than 300 years.
In celebration of this history, FRIENDS of the Upper East Side Historic Districts is releasing today a new neighborhood history book, “Shaped by Immigrants: A History of Yorkville.” And after getting a sneak peek, we couldn’t resist sharing some juicy neighborhood history gems. From having its own “piano ferry” and the largest brewery in the country to revolutionizing apartment living, this Upper East Side enclave is bursting with exciting secrets!
10 things you probably didn’t know about Yorkville
By Dana Schulz, Tue, September 13, 2016 Our ongoing series “My sqft” checks out the homes of 6sqft’s friends, family and fellow New Yorkers across all the boroughs. Our latest interior adventure brings us to a fitness studio COO’s Yorkville one-bedroom, infused with mid-century-modern furniture and contemporary decor. Want to see your home featured here? Get in touch!
Ashley Davis moved to New York City after graduating from college in 2004. She thought it would just be for a couple years, but, like so many of us, she never left. She’s been living on the Upper East Side since 2007 and has been in her current Yorkville apartment for three-and-a-half years. After making a career shift from the advertising/tech world to joining her friend and former colleague Helaine Knapp at CITYROW (Ashley is the fitness studio’s chief operating officer), as well as very recently welcoming her boyfriend into her apartment, Ashley has created an inviting home that’s a mix of mid-century-modern furniture, contemporary decor, lots of textures, and a sophisticated color palette.
Take the tour
By Ondel Hylton, Mon, May 23, 2016 Not quite ready to buy a condo, but still want to feel like you’re living in one? For a limited time, the Related Companies is offering one month free at their newest upscale rental The Easton, located at 205 East 92nd Street. The 36-story development is located at the boundary of the Carnegie Hill and Yorkville neighborhoods on the Upper East Side and is loaded with all the amenities, thoughtful layouts, and meticulous craftsmanship typical of many new high-end condominiums.
Find out more
By Susan Cohen, Fri, May 6, 2016 At a time when Batman and Captain America are all over the big screens and sports culture is becoming increasingly digital, one might think superheroes’ and athletes’ presence on paper is waning. But collecting cards and comics is alive and well in Yorkville, where Alex’s MVP Cards and Comics has everything an X-Men-, Archie-, or sport-loving aficionado could want.
Alex Gregg first opened a store on the Upper East Side 27 years ago. The business grew out of his own personal collection and interest and is now the place to locate that latest rookie card, newest comic, or buy a piece of memorabilia. Alex certainly knows a great deal about history – particularly New York history – having worked for 22 years as a bartender at the famed (and now closed) establishment Elaine’s. 6sqft recently spoke with Alex about how cards and comics have both changed and remained the same and about his days at Elaine’s.
Read the interview with Alex
By Ondel Hylton, Thu, February 11, 2016 Yesterday, Hellmuth Obata & Kassabaum (HOK) filed permit applications with the city’s Department of Buildings to construct their first residential tower in the city–an 18-story, mixed-use condominium tower at 147 East 86th Street on the Upper East Side. The 210,000-square-foot project will anchor the northeast corner of Lexington Avenue and 86th Street and will sit directly atop the Lexington line’s 86th Street subway station, for which the developers will build a new entrance. The $340 million project is being shepherded by a joint venture among Stillman Development, Ceruzzi Properties, and Kuafu Properties, who will build retail on the first few floors of the building and high-end condo units up top. Much of the site is owned by the the estate of real estate mogul Sol Goldman. Filed plans show that the development will contain 63 units and rise 210 feet, the maximum height allowed in the zoning district.
More details and renderings this way
By Ondel Hylton, Wed, January 20, 2016 In spite of a bristling array of glass spires erupting into our man-made mountain range and a global high-rise boom remodeling world cities into alien, cutting-edge anonymity, Manhattan stubbornly manages to appear tellurian. But Joseph McMillan’s integrated real estate investment and design company DDG has emerged as one firm genuinely committed to nurturing and progressing our architectural zoo of a city. Their past projects–345 Meatpacking, 41 Bond Street, XOCO 325, and 12 Warren– transcend common architectural styles, clad in a unique palette of materials and composed of an uncanny mashup of parts informed by context, nature, and technology.
DDG’s latest exotic specimen comes to the architecturally conservative Upper East Side ‘hood of Yorkville, at 180 East 88th Street (1558-1556 Third Avenue). The 32-story, 521-foot development will not only be the team’s first uptown building, but also their first high-rise. DDG purchased the three-lot parcel from Muss Development for $70 million in 2013, and groundwork earnestly began last spring.
Lots more details and renderings this way
By Emily Nonko, Wed, December 30, 2015 There’s an interesting background behind this Victorian townhouse located at 142 East End Avenue within the Henderson Place Historic District in Yorkville. It was developed with other townhouses in the late 19th century by developer John C. Henderson for “persons of moderate means.” These days, you’ll need a lot more than moderate means to afford one–last year, a neighboring townhouse that had undergone a two-year gut renovation was on the market for $7.5 million or $25,900 a month. This one is also priced at $7.5 million, though it’s been on and off the market since late 2012 asking anywhere from $6.5 to $8.5 million (h/t Curbed).
The townhouse (once owned by a testifying forensic pathologist in the O.J. Simpson trial) was also gut renovated, with the interior all luxury while the exterior retains its original masonry detailing and modest brick façade, designed by architecture firm Lamb & Rich. Interior details include Italian tile flooring, Brazilian teak hardwood, four private outdoor spaces and a grand stainless steel staircase with walnut finishes.
Check it out
By Ondel Hylton, Tue, December 1, 2015 Photographs from mid-October of 205 East 92nd Street by the photoblogger Field Condition.
Related Companies‘ playground-pouncing rental tower at 205 East 92nd Street has launched its housing lottery that provides below-market rents for 47 of the building’s 231 units. The 36-story tower is in its home stretch of construction, prepping for occupancy in early 2016. Vested in the city’s and state’s Inclusionary Housing /421-a programs, 20 percent of the units will be reserved for low-income tenants. Fifty percent of the subsidized units will be reserved for residents of Manhattan Community Board 8 (covering the Upper East Side and Roosevelt Island) and an additional 5 percent for municipal employees.
Selected applicants will be provided apartments at a tremendous discount when compared to the neighborhood’s market-rate rents. According to CityRealty, the median rental price for a one-bedroom in Yorkville stands at $3,210; and $5,398 for two-bedroom apartments. Affordable one-bedrooms at 205 East 92nd will start at $607 and two-bedrooms at $736.
More details and pricing
By Michelle Cohen, Thu, November 12, 2015 Though we so often hear that an eye for interiors–or a good decorator–can make even the smallest apartment feel like a gracious home, we love to see real-life examples that aren’t in magazines shot by highly-paid photographers. This slender Upper East Side one-bedroom co-op at 330 East 94th Street with a relatively manageable $435,000 price tag is an inspiring example. In addition to the fact that with ownership comes the right (co-op board willing of course) to transform the space with any number of clever solutions, it would take far less to create a charming pied-a-terre, for example, without that level of effort or expense.
Look around
