54 Morningside Drive #1

The Mont Cenis at 54 Morningside Drive is named after an Alpine pass through which Napoleon built a road in 1810 linking France with Italy. Gazing out from the living room windows of Apartment 1, a classic 8 room residence at 54 MSD, one looks beyond the ramparts of Morningside Park to the far away silhouette of upper Manhattan unfolding to the east. Designed in 1905 by the celebrated firm of Schwartz and Gross whose 8 impressive buildings still define Central Park West, Apartment 1 evokes the ambiance of a 19th C century townhouse. Its traditional trio of Living Room, Library and Formal Dining Room crowned by lofty ceilings and abetted by a large Dine-in Kitchen afford entertaining in grand style. There are 3, potentially 4, full bedrooms, 1.5 expandable to 2 full baths and lively prewar detail. Every morning one is invigorated by the heat of the sun rising over the Park, filling numerous windows, arrayed on an open northeast corner, with buoyant light. Serenity and architectural distinction pervade Morningside Heights, scene of a key Revolutionary War battle, but also home to the President of Columbia University just opposite, the divinity of St John’s monumental Cathedral, the proximity of a great Ivy League university and (Tom’s) Restaurant of Seinfield lore. A kaleidoscope of Upper West Side and West Harlem restaurants and services and a 2 block walk to the 1 train are added attractions. 54 MSD is tended by a live-in super, provides individual storage space, a bike room, a laundry and welcomes pets. Dwight Eisenhower lived across the street. Jack Kerouac, Amelia Earhart and F. Scott Fitzgerald, all neighbors, knew, to paraphrase the latter, that Living well [on the Heights] was the best revenge."