111 CPN vs Upper East 60s

more sound investment

The Upper East Side is a proven area but my heart/gut? says THE PARK, how can it get better than being on the park? Of course, those places at 111 CPN aren't going for a song & apparently a lot of people hear HARLEM and run away. Anyone else?

morningside heights would be better

111 CPN, the park, the view, the vibe.

Check out 50 West 127th Street ( www.50westcondominium.com ). This particular building is quite unique in terms of the quality of the structure, the overall design, as well as the finishes and appliances. It has a limestone façade, huge tilt and turn German made mahogany framed windows, sub zero, viking range, marble counters, italian cabinetry by Poliform, oak floors, is pre-wired by Bang and Olufsen, part-time door man as well as video intercom, and abatement for 25 yrs. It is located on 127th street bewteen lenox and 5th avenue, around the corner from the famous sylvia’s restaurant, 125th street shopping, Bill Clinton’s office, Harlem Hospital Center is eight blocks away straight down Lenox Ave., Mt Sinai Medical center is approx. 10 minutes on the M02 bus, and Central Park is about 5 minutes on the bus or train. The train as well as the bus are down the block on Lenox Avenue….location is excellent. Also, the new extension to Columbia’s main campus by B’dway and 125 street will only be about 8 minutes by bus and 15 minutes walking. A new Macy’s and perhaps a Bed Bath & Beyond will be constructed on 125th street and Lenox. Additionally, the NBA Players Association is setting-up offices around the corner on 126th street and Lenox. Finally, you’ve got starbucks, staples, marshalls, etc. on 125th street and Lenox. I would say to definitely check it out! In general, I think with all that is happening in Harlem you would be making a safe bet should you decide to relocate.

You’ll enjoy the Harlem neighborhood and make money upon resale without a doubt. The profit margin, upon resale, for units further downtown is far inferior to that of the emerging juggernaut “Harlem”. Just to give you a sense…a friend of mine purchased a condominium in the area for $730,000 approx two yrs ago and it’s now worth approx. $1.9million and because the area has room to grow so will appreciation.

"Central Park is about 5 minutes on the bus or train." Hold me back!

I'm fascinated by Central Park North - IT'S ON THE PARK. What is transportation like up there mid block on CPN? I saw another place just a few blocks north of CPN on a corner & you could practically see the park but I just don't want to get too far from that park.

111 Central Park North is an island of luxury and opulence amidst a sea of abject poverty. Make sure you do proper due diligence on the neighborhood blocks that immediately surround 111 Central Park North: 1 block north at 112th & Lenox you have 6 superblocks of the Martin Luther King housing projects. One-half block to the east at 33 Central Park North you have a city jail, the Lincoln Correctional Facility, and the inmate's weekly visitors. The benches along Central Park North in Central Park from Lenox to Fifth Avenue can best be described as a Skid Row of herione and methadone users. Then just take a walk by yourself down West 112th from 6th Avenue (a.k.a. Lenox or Malcolm X) to 7th (a.k.a Adam Clayton Powell). It is plainly a ghetto. All in all, living at 111 Central Park North would be awkward.

I'd say go with river apts on York (2nd ave subway) or Central Park North if you can brave it in the meantime. It won't be 3-5 years though... maybe 5-10.

The prices at 11 CPN seem way out of whack - even for a new, fancy building. Sure it is on the park - and the park at the northern end is very nice - but it is still very much in a transitional area (I cross up there all the time between home and work and it is right near some buildings that are not in particularly good condition). It is hard to guess what the area will look like in a few years, but there is no chance it will look like the upper 60's if that is the kind of neighborhood you are really looking for.

#6 is a broker, nice advertisement, loser.

I live in Harlem and love it, but I agree with #11 about the pricing of 111 CPN, and with #9 at least with regard to the large cluster of housing projects. Generally 1-3 project buildings clustered together are okay, but big clumps become insular in a soul-killing way, and problems result.

On the other hand, much of the E. 60s is very noisy and crowded, so it depends on how you like/dislike that. I couldn't deal with the traffic, whether I'm walking or stuck in it. And I couldn't deal with the tourists near 5th Ave.

Honestly I don't care how nice the building is. It's all smoke and mirrors. You are still buying an apt in the ghetto. If you are a pioneer and willing to rough it, don't pay for a luxury building in the middle of Harlem. Definitely buy on the Upper Eastside.

Honestly I don't care how nice the building is. It's all smoke and mirrors. You are still buying an apt in the ghetto. If you are a pioneer and willing to rough it, don't pay for a luxury building in the middle of Harlem. Definitely buy on the Upper Eastside.

Honestly I don't care how nice the building is. It's all smoke and mirrors. You are still buying an apt in the ghetto. If you are a pioneer and willing to rough it, don't pay for a luxury building in the middle of Harlem. Definitely buy on the Upper Eastside.

I should start by saying that I just don't care for that building at ANY price but it does seem awfully expensive & perhaps even ostentatious in that decidedly down scale area. CPN fascinates me & there is a building just east of there that I like but those prices in that area do seem a bit much. I'd love to know what you've decided - and when you're having the house warming.

Here is more about the prison that is 200 yards away from 111 Central Park North:
A non-descript eight-story building -- 31-33 West 110th Street -- isn’t an apartment block at all. It’s a prison—the Lincoln Correctional Facility, a minimum-security center operated by the State Department of Corrections.

Few people, even neighbors, have any idea that a prison sits on Central Park. ‘We’re proud of the fact that we don’t make the facility auspicious,’ said Superintendent Joseph Williams, the man who oversees the 408-bed operation. In the facility’s 26 years, there hasn’t been a single incident or citation. Those who do know of the facility, he said, ‘are very appreciative of the fact that we’re pretty good neighbors.’

The building was bought by the State Department of Corrections in 1974 for $550,000 and in 1976 opened as the Lincoln Correctional Facility. Today $550,000 will buy you 3 parking spaces at 111 Central Park North!

According to Superintendent Williams, Lincoln began as a sort of halfway stop for prisoners with less than two years until parole, but in 1991 it was expanded into a work-release center. One of three such facilities in Manhattan (there’s another in Harlem and one on West 20th Street) and eight in the state, Lincoln houses on average 275 inmates, though many of those are only onsite a few days a week; the rest of the time they are on furlough, working and living with friends or relatives. Some don’t live at the facility at all; Williams calls them ‘day reporters’ or ‘7-0ers.’ They ‘report once or twice a week for a urine test, to make sure they’re not doing drugs, and to maybe speak with a counselor.’

While Lincoln has a 408-person capacity, today its average population runs closer to 275, thanks to a 1996 law that made violent offenders ineligible for work release. Drug convictions, Williams said, were responsible for the bulk of the inmates. ‘All in all we’ve got a pretty low profile, and a very good program. There’s a 95-percent release rate for parole.’

The five percent who don’t make parole, Williams said, usually come from the prisoners who comprise the rest of Lincoln’s population: white-collar criminals. It’s more than a little ironic that quite a few of them have probably spent time in some of Central Park’s tonier and better-known addresses. In any case, they’ve gotten to know Lincoln pretty well. ‘A few of the high-profile white-collar criminals have been here over six years,’ Williams noted with a chuckle.

swing by this place: www.50westcondominium.com. I came across it over the weekend and it's really nice..still under construction and tucked away between Lenox Ave and 5th Ave on 127th street. There's also the development by Marcus Garvey Park I think it's on 5th Ave and 120th street

#19, isn't that the property that's featured in the advertorial at post #6?

Abuse. Not good.

For that NY Road Runner guy who paid $2.7 million to live at 111 CPN: I hope he can ou run bullets because there was a murder right around the corner at Central Park North and Fifth Avenue in Harlem. A couple of guys got in a fight outside a fried chicken restaurant and starting shooting each other. Sounds like a classy neighborhood. . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/nyregion/24shoot.html?ref=nyregion

June 24, 2007
Gunman Kills 1 in Harlem, Then Is Shot by the Police
By CARA BUCKLEY and ETHAN WILENSKY-LANFORD
A subway conductor was shot and killed and two of his friends were wounded after a dispute outside a fried chicken restaurant in East Harlem early yesterday, the police and witnesses said. The man who shot them continued firing as he ran from the scene and was himself shot and critically wounded by police gunfire, according to the police.

The suspect, Daniel Israel, 20, was in critical but stable condition yesterday at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, and both of the other wounded men were treated and released, according to a hospital spokesman and the police.

Mr. Israel shot the conductor, Warren Justin Dandridge, 26, of Staten Island, about 12:30 a.m. outside a Kennedy Fried Chicken on Fifth Avenue near 111th Street, the police said, adding that the motive was not clear.

Witnesses described a frantic, bloody scene outside the restaurant, but said they could not say with certainty what set off the dispute between Mr. Israel and the three men he is accused of shooting.

According to the police, two housing bureau officers on patrol in a marked police van saw a man firing at another man in front of the restaurant. They found Mr. Dandridge on the ground, with gunshot wounds to his abdomen, buttocks and ankle, and one of his friends, Michael Bloomfield, 26, shot in the arm.

The officers began chasing the gunman, Mr. Israel, who was running east on 110th Street, the police said. At some point, the police added, Mr. Israel began shooting, though it was not clear whether he was firing at the officers who were chasing him.

The officers fired at him, striking him once in the abdomen, and he fell across from the Schomburg Plaza housing complex, where he lives. The police said they recovered a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol and shell casings from the scene.

Mr. Dandridge, Mr. Bloomfield and Mr. Israel were taken to St. Luke’s. Mr. Dandridge, who lived with his father on Heberton Avenue, a quiet street on Staten Island, was pronounced dead at 4:30 a.m. The third victim, William Blake, 20, who said he was a friend of Mr. Dandridge’s, later walked into St. Luke’s with graze wounds to an arm, the police said.

Mr. Dandridge had been working as a subway conductor for about a year and a half, said Paul J. Fleuranges, a spokesman for New York City Transit. He was assigned to the No. 3 line, and his colleagues called his father when he did not show up for his 8 a.m. shift yesterday at the 148th Street station, Mr. Fleuranges said.

“Warren’s death is a senseless tragedy, a further example of the deadly toll illegal guns have exacted on our city,” the transit agency’s president, Howard H. Roberts Jr., said in a statement.

A friend of Mr. Dandridge’s, Johnny Norman, 25, said that the two had grown up together on West 111th Street, and that Mr. Dandridge had moved to Staten Island about four years ago.

Another acquaintance, Sheba Taylor, 21, said Mr. Dandridge had a daughter, Justice, whom he doted on. “He’s an extremely good dad; he loved his daughter,” she said. “His daughter’s only 2 years old. She’s not even going to remember him.”

The police said Mr. Israel had been arrested at least four times in the past, on charges including weapons possession and assault.

Relatives and friends of Mr. Dandridge gathered at his home yesterday, weeping and consoling one another with long hugs. Mr. Dandridge was well liked, hardworking and quiet, several relatives said, and often did volunteer work with children at the local Y.M.C.A.

How about the guy who got stabbed in the East Village last night? "Sounds like a classy neighborhood"

East Village stabbing: http://wcbstv.com/topstories/local_story_174081255.html

Stabbing Victim Found In East Village Is Stable
(CBS/AP) NEW YORK Police are searching for a suspect after they found a man stabbed in the neck in Manhattan's lively East Village.

The victim was found in a building on East 4th Street near 2nd Avenue shortly after 9 p.m. Friday. Police say it's not clear whether the stabbing happened in the building, or elsewhere.

The victim, who's in his 40s, is in stable condition at Beth Israel Medical Center.

Ok so there's crime in NYC people....no matter which specific location you talk about:

Student stabbed in Union Sq
Written by 1010 Wins
Monday, 05 March 2007
A high school student was stabbed Monday morning exiting a subway station in Manhattan, police said.

It happened on the sidewalk outside 104 East 14th Street near Union Square park just before 9 a.m. The victim, a 16-year-old, came up the subway stairs and was chased by three or four other teens before being stabbed four times with either an ice pick or a screwdriver.

The weapon has not been recovered. The victim, a junior at Chelsea High School, is in stable condition at Bellevue Hospital.

Police took a 13-year-old suspect into custody, but were still pursuing two or three other teens.

Oh yeah, just up the Street at 121st and Madison, a completely innocent man was murdered in broad daylight at 6pm after he refused to give 2 muggers his money. Welcome to Harlem!

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=local&id=5415797

Nephew, 5, saw shooting at the scene
By Ken Rosato
(New York - WABC, June 23, 2007) - The park shooting that left an East Harlem man dead has people in that community frustrated and angry.

A pair of gunmen murdered a 27-year-old man inside the restroom at Mount Morris Park. This as the victim's 5-year-old nephew stood nearby.
Eyewitness News reporter Ken Rosato has the latest from East Harlem.

It was supposed to be an evening of fun with barbecue but the evening ended in tragedy. Now, police are searching for a pair of killers.

"He didn't deserve it," said victim's uncle Ira Boyce. "He didn't deserve it."

Relatives are angry at the senseless murder of 27-year-old, one of their own. Terrod Wright was shot to death during a robbery gone bad.

"He is a good kid. He always works and he goes to school. He speaks to anybody politely," said Boyce. "Everybody in the neighborhood loves him."

Friday at 6 p.m. Terrod Wright and his family were enjoying barbecue at Mount Morris Park in East Harlem.

As Wright walked his 5-year-old nephew to the restroom, just few hundred feet away, two men followed them inside and demanded his money. He resisted. They fired striking right once in the stomach.

Fortunately his young nephew was not hurt and ran for help. Wright was rushed to area hospital but he died short time later.

"We have some uncaring people in our society that want to rob somebody and they killed him," victim's uncle Ira said.

Residents say the East Harlem Park has gotten progressively worse over the years because of a lack of police presence.

"It was family park," said a resident. "But now, drugs are taking over the park."

Police described the attackers as in their mid 20s, 5' 10" tall, around 170 pounds and one of them was wearing jeans and yellow t-shirt at the time of incident.

"It wasn't that late, around 6: 30 p.m. no more than 7 p.m.," said one of relatives. "By the grace of the lord, where was the cop?"

Although he wasn't physically hurt, relatives now fear for the psychological well-being of the 5-year-old.

At this point, police say they are still searching for this pair of killers.

#26 Check out the NY Times crime stats...the higher the number the more likely you are of falling victim to crime...Obviously you aren't as safe as you would like to think you are...I'd feel safe in Harlem just look at the stats:

Harlem = 84 (Lowest among those listed)

Far West Village = 212
West Village = 175
Soho/Tribeca = 157
Chelsea = 142
Financial District = 139
Downtown = 136
Lower East Side = 130
East Village = 117

I was thinking about buying an apt at 2002 fifth across the street from Mt Morris Park (ie Marcus Garvey Park). I drove by the other day and it was a total slum. I didnt even feel safe driving there and I was in a car! I can just imaging walking around there. Then I heard about the man being murdered in that park. If it is an up and coming neighborhood, I think it will be safe in 20 years minimum. Its a total warzone up there.

How about the Doctor who blew-up his townhouse purposely so that his wife wouldn't benefit financially from it...this happened a yr or two ago on 62nd and 5th...is there a unit avaliable next to the gaping whole that was left by that criminal?...oh no I forgot he's not a "criminal" because he was an affluent doctor who lived in one of the more affluent areas of manhattan...he was just a "disturbed" person! Perceptions are everything in this world....and most of our perceptions are skewed.

#28 What do you say about the stats by #27?