Executive Plaza ApartmentsNew York, NY

Executive Plaza Apartments

150 W 51st Street
New York, NY 10019

Between Avenue Of The Americas & Seventh Avenue | Midtown West How was this building rated? This large pre-war building at 150 West 51st Street, which occupies the entire east blockfront on Seventh Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets that was formerly the Taft Hotel, was divided into two sections with their own adjacent street entrances. The 22-story complex was erected in 1926. It was converted in 1986 into 448 condominium residences, 270 hotel rooms and about 35,000 square feet of retail space and 20,000 square feet of office space by Taft Partnners Development Group, a venture of Steven Goodstein of the Goodstein Construction company, Hank Sopher of J. I. Sopher & Company and Arthur Cohen, chairman of Arlem Realty and Development Corporation. Wechsler-Grasso-Menziuso was the architect for the conversions. Executive Plaza is the residential condominium and occupies the mid-block section of the develpoment. It contains 443 apartments. The Michelangelo Hotel, which occupies the second through the sixth floors, is along the avenue and is the other section. The property had gone through several ownership changes prior to the renaissance of Times Square in the mid-1990's and even the construction of the huge and very impressive Equitable Center, known for a while as the Axa Center and now as 787 Seventh Avenue, directly across 51st Street did little to improve the property's economics. The revival of the Times Square area, helped in no small part at the northern end by the commitment of the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States to erect a major new headquarters on Seventh Avenue with a significant amount of public art, however, changed this property's fortunes. Equitable subsequently moved out of the building to a nearby location in an existing tower on the Avenue of the Americas and changed its name to AXA. A new gray polished granite three-story base was part of the rehabilitation and the Michelangelo Hotel, which has a very impressive and large lobby at 152 West 51st Street, closer to the Seventh Av...

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