The polish factory
The Esquire Building went up on Wythe Avenue in 1914 as a factory. Its name comes from the shoe polish: Sam and Albert Abrams, two Brooklyn chemists, took over the Knomark Manufacturing Company during the Depression, and from 1938 the Esquire brand was theirs. They made it here, and sold the company and the building in the late 1950s. Stephanie Eisenberg bought the building in the 1980s, 1984 by one account and 1983 by the press account, and began converting it to condominiums in 2000; the city's own lot record puts the alteration at 2002. There are 75 apartments today by the city's count, and the building sits close to the waterfront and its parks.
Apartment 4E
The apartment is a three-bedroom, two-bath loft of 1,439 square feet on the fourth floor. The factory frame does the work: concrete beams cross the ceilings, the brick is exposed or painted white, and large new windows, four of them with Juliet balconies, look out over the neighborhood to the city and the East River.
The recent improvements are practical rather than showy. The kitchen has clean-lined cabinetry, an open shelf run and a built-in dishwasher; the floors are new; the air ducts are new; a washer and dryer sit inside the unit. Carved Moroccan-style doors mark the passage between the rooms, and the primary bedroom takes a generous walk-in closet. The two remaining bedrooms are sized for sleeping, working or guests, whichever the next owner needs.
The numbers
Common charges are $918 a month and taxes are $1,512 a month. An assessment of $397.72 a month runs through May 2032. The building is pet friendly and runs a geothermal climate system.
