They had been living on the East Side and needed a larger apartment for their family.
He loved the location, across the street from the Hudson River and from Riverside Park South, a band of greenery that stretches from West 59th Street up to West 72nd Street, as does the boulevard. Now, he and some pals from his building regularly work out with a trainer in the park, he said, moving to their building’s gym when the weather is bad.
“We bought off a floor plan and moved in early in 2008,” he said of the three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment, for which they paid about $2 million. “It’s the best thing we ever did.”
He and Karen Hazin, attorneys in their early 50s, have a 20-year-old son and an 18-year-old daughter who, before college, attended the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in the Bronx, a quick school-bus ride on the West Side Highway, which is also across the street from their building. Easy access to prestigious private schools, in the area and beyond, is one of the neighborhood’s draws, said residents and real estate agents.
“It’s a family-oriented neighborhood. It feels like you’re in the suburbs, but you’re 10 minutes from Broadway,” said Slava Hazin, who has since become president of his condominium board and of the Riverside South Property Owners Association, which collects fees from all the boulevard buildings to help maintain the park. “It’s absolutely its own neighborhood. Some people don’t even consider it part of the Upper West Side.”
Until the 1990s, Riverside Boulevard did not exist. It was built over a Penn Central train yard, starting at the northern end, part of a project with a complicated history. The street and park have grown over the years, Hazin said, with the final three buildings and park areas nearing completion: “The neighborhood has only gotten better.”
Molly MacDermot, 44, moved to the area 14 years ago, when her son was born. She and her husband, Gene Boxer, an attorney who is also 44, wanted more space than their rental on West 56th Street afforded. MacDermot works for Girls Write Now, a nonprofit mentoring organization. Ten years ago, after their daughter arrived, they moved to a rental on West 77th Street, but they missed their old Riverside neighborhood. So a few years ago, they bought a four-bedroom apartment in a different building on Riverside Boulevard.
“We love the park,” she said. “We go there all the time, and the children bring sketchbooks. We look at the barges going by.”
They also watch people walking dogs, pushing strollers and whizzing by on Rollerblades. In the summer, they attend free activities like yoga, Irish dancing and movies, and often have picnics. “It’s like mini-vacations,” she said.
Renee Simons, 69, a retired marketing communications executive, and her husband, Eglon, 72, a retired media management executive, looked “downtown and uptown” for a place to downsize from their Chappaqua, New York, home after their three children grew up, she said. In 2009, they bought a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in the neighborhood with water views for about $2 million.
“We love being near Lincoln Center, the amenities within the building and the general neighborhood,” Renee Simons said. “It was just fitting for us.”
What You’ll Find
A parade of tall buildings with tall windows runs along the eastern side of Riverside Boulevard, from West 72nd down to West 59th Street. On the west lies Riverside Park South, which has graceful landscaping with walking paths, play areas and other features, mostly below street level, along the Hudson River. A raised portion of the West Side Highway hovers over the park.
The earliest buildings, toward the northern end, opened in the late 1990s. The most recent — three glass towers and a park between West 59th and West 61st Street, collectively called Waterline Square — are not yet finished. All the boulevard buildings have doormen, water views and extravagant amenities. Common areas may include pools, gyms, indoor and outdoor lounges, and children’s playrooms.
“These are lifestyle buildings,” said Annie Cion Gruenberger, an agent with Warburg Realty. “They look like hotels. Everything you need is right here.”
Residential plans for the area began in the 1970s with proposals from Donald Trump, none of which were executed; in 1994, Trump sold his controlling interest in the project to other investors. His company still manages some of the buildings, and seven were given the name Trump Place. Since 2016, the Trump name has been removed from four of the buildings.
The Trump-instigated development known as Riverside South includes a few addresses on nearby streets, including two new buildings on West End Avenue and one in Waterline Square, at 400 W. 61st St.
Jennifer Kalish, sales director for One West End Avenue, said her 42-story building, which abuts Waterline Square, is part of an area called Riverside Center and part of the boulevard community. It includes a large Morton Williams supermarket, soon to open, that many boulevard residents are anticipating. Like other new buildings, it is a condo that also has middle-income housing units, which gave the building a 20-year tax abatement.
What You’ll Pay
Of the 100 homes with Riverside Boulevard addresses listed for sale on The New York Times real estate site in early February, the least expensive was a studio with “panoramic river and sunset views” at 120 Riverside Blvd., offered at $690,000. The most expensive was a six-bedroom, eight-bathroom condo listed for $13.95 million.
The average closing price for the 12-month period ending Jan. 10, 2019, according to data provided by Warburg Realty, was $2,155,297; the active-listings average, including apartments in the more expensive Waterline Square, was $3,339,619.
“This is a neighborhood in transition,” Gruenberger said, adding that, as elsewhere in the city, “there is a lot of price revision” downward.
Of 97 rentals on The New York Times site in early February, the lowest priced was $2,565 a month for a studio at 180 Riverside Blvd., one of three all-rental buildings. The highest, at $55,000, was a five-bedroom, 6 1/2-bathroom corner unit with a terrace at 50 Riverside Blvd., a condo building.
The Vibe
Pier I Cafe, at the foot of a recreational pier that juts nearly 800 feet into the Hudson River at West 70th Street, is “a frequent gathering spot for people in the neighborhood,” said Dan Garodnick, president and chief executive of the Riverside Park Conservancy, which helps to take care of the park. He described it as “a New Yorker’s park,” partly because it is too out of the way for tourists and also because “people who live in the area are wildly committed to its upkeep.”
The conservancy offers 250 free programs a year, from May to October, as well as public art projects like Sarah E. Brook’s “Viewfinding,” at West 67th Street through Aug. 22, 2019. New sections of the park, which will extend it on the street level, are in the works, Garodnick said.
Spencer Sloan, 41, a resident of the neighborhood since 2010, with his wife, Alma, and two children, ages 7 and 8, has noticed “more action” on the boulevard, he said, including new schools, new medical offices and the first two restaurants: BLU Café, at 120 Riverside Blvd., run by the BLU Realty Group next door but open to anyone; and Vin Sur Vingt, at 100 Riverside Blvd., a wine bar that serves brunch on the weekends. Sloan said he is looking forward to the new Cipriani restaurant and food court scheduled to open this year in Waterline Square.
James E. Linsley, president of GID Development Group, which is building Waterline Square, said he moved into a nearby building with his family so he could better understand “what might be lacking” and “how to create a real heart for the neighborhood.”
Food and beverage venues topped the list of things that were lacking, he said, and a second restaurant will be part of the Waterline complex. A park that runs through the middle of the development, at what would be West 60th Street, will be open to the public and provide a link to Riverside Park South.
The Schools
PS/IS 191, the Riverside School for Makers and Artists, is in a new location with a new name, at 300 W. 61st St., and is being upgraded to appeal more to area residents. It has 570 students in kindergarten through eighth grade. In the 2017-18 School Quality Snapshot, 32 percent of students met state standards in English, compared to 47 percent citywide; in math, 22 percent met state standards, compared to 43 percent statewide.
Collegiate School has moved into a new building at 301 Freedom Place South, between West 61st and 62nd streets. It is one of several prestigious private schools in the area, including the Abraham Joshua Heschel School, at 30 West End Ave. near West 61st Street.
The Commute
Most buildings run a shuttle bus to the West 72nd Street subway station on Broadway for the 1, 2 and 3 trains, and some also have shuttles to Columbus Circle, where the A, B, C and D lines are available, in addition to the 1. Some residents find walking easier. The 1 line also stops at Lincoln Center, which is closer to several buildings.
The History
The 69th Street Transfer Bridge, one of the few visible remnants of the neighborhood’s railroading past, is in the Hudson River just offshore, south of Pier I. It once allowed barges loaded with train cars to cross the river between New Jersey and New York. The bridge was abandoned in the early 1970s, after the New York Central Railroad went out of business, and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.