February 23, 2016
West End Avenue is one of Manhattan's longest stretches of harmonious architecture. The nearly 50-block-long, better-looking half of Eleventh Avenue is the Upper West Side's answer to Park Avenue, without the median and with the community. The Avenue's rows of stately prewar buildings are raised to a mostly uniform height of 12 to 15 stories and appear as if some Haussmann-like visionary conceived their elegance and scale. Behind dignified masonry facades are wood-paneled lobbies and sprawling apartments that are stacked in classic sixes and sevens with staff quarters.
Near the Avenue's starting point at Straus Park, at the northwest corner of 105th Street, 915 West End Avenue rises humbly without much fuss. The red-brick building, built in 1922, was designed by beloved architect Rosario Candela and is undergoing a conversion that would transform 43 of its 91 rental apartments into condominium residences, according to an offering plan submitted to the attorney general.
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