The East 50s

The East 50s have long been regarded as one of the most fashionable districts in Manhattan, with some of the most well known establishments - residences, hotels (the Waldorf-Astoria), retailers and restaurants with addresses like Park Avenue, Madison Ave, Sutton Place and Beekman Place. From the luxury condominium Veneto's website: "Since the early 1920s, the East 50s have attracted the most influential and prominent members of New York's society from the Vanderbilts to the Rockefellers." In the residental section close to the river, known as Turtle Bay, there have been many influential journalists, writers and actors as residents, including the writers Alexander Woollcott, John Steinbeck (330 East 51st St.), John O'Hara (230 East 51st St.), Edgar Allan Poe, early feminist revolutionary journalist Margaret Fuller and publisher Horace Greeley. Their lives and work have given the area the ambiance of the quintessential urbane sophisticated NYC district and were important contributors to creating the Manhattan mystique that has drawn people from all over the country and the world. In this photo: the Citicorp Building (which I have posted on previously - click here) with its distinctive angular roof line; to its lower right the oval shaped Lipstick Building (Philip Johnson); and at lower left, the northern end of Beekman Place. I guess we must say to residents there, vive la difference ...