The Victoria, 7 East 14th Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 7 East 14th Street by Carter Horsley

This enormous, 21-story, white-brick apartment house between Fifth Avenue and University Place has a very central location that is extremely convenient to public transportation, Lower Fifth Avenue, Greenwich Village, Chelsea and the Union Square and Flatiron districts.

When it was built in 1964, 14th Street was in disarray, a mix of declining New York institutions like the S. Klein Department Store, a famous discount emporium, and Luchow's, the famous German restaurant, now both gone, and open storefront clothing and notions shops, and Union Square Park just to the east was a notorious drug haven, and beyond the splendid Con Edison Building at Irving Place, East 14th Street was not glamorous.

The old Academy of Music theater gave way, however, to the spectacular Palladium disco, designed by Arata Isozaki and Klein's was demolished to make way for the huge Zeckendorf Towers project that revitalized the neighborhood and led to a major clean-up of Union Square Park. At the same time, Park Avenue South and the Flatiron District became very chic with trendy restaurants and many important advertising and publishing office tenants and in the 1990's art galleries began to move from SoHo to Chelsea just to the west.

At the nexus of much of New York's most vibrant and youthful energy, this building now has a most enviable location. The Palladium unfortunately was demolished and replaced by a dormitory for New York University but about the same time food stories such as Whole Foods and Trader Joe's opened on East 14th Street and two new residential buildings on Union Square were completed.

The building's 495 apartments were converted to a cooperative in 1986 when the area began to look on the up and up.

This building, which is located at 7 East 14th Street and is called the Victoria, has a two-tone façade and was designed by Philip Birnbaum & Associates. It has a canopied entrance and some terraces, a roof deck and it is pet friendly.