Almost Gramercy Park: Stuyvesant Square Declares Independence From a Famous Neighbor

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Chris Pomorski

It is a commonplace of New York City real estate that brokers and developers often label less desirable neighborhoods to cash in on proximity to more established bastions. Thus “Nolita” and “NoMad,” the too-liberal applications in listings of “East Williamsburg” and “South Slope.” More unusual are instances of marketers dispensing with perfectly good, geographically appropriate brand names in favor of sobriquets less well known.

And so the case of Stuyvesant Square represents something of an enigma. Organized around Stuyvesant Square Park and bounded, roughly, by 14th and 18th Streets and First and Third Avenues, it would seem to fit into the southeastern corner of the Gramercy Park neighborhood, which is generally considered to run from 14th to 23rd Streets between First and Lexington Avenues—and which ranks with Manhattan’s most fashionable precincts.

Few would object to the neighborhood adopting Gramercy’s banner; it would seem an entirely kosher and, for salespeople, productive use of the name. But Stuyvesant Square is, by some reckonings, Gramercy with an asterisk—or not at all.



Read more at http://observer.com/2014/08/almost-gramercy-park-stuyvesant-square-declares-independence-from-a-famous-neighbor/#ixzz3BQ4KI0ga