Decaying Upper East Side Medical Clinic To Be Torn Down, Plans Show

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — A small Upper East Side building that was home until recently to a medical facility is set to be demolished, according to newly filed plans.

Developer Menahem Chukroon filed plans Thursday to tear down the two-story building at 1484 First Ave., between East 77th and 78th streets.

Built in 1960, the building had for years housed clinics by NewYork-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine, including the Irving Sherwood Wright Medical Center on Aging.

Those organizations' lease expired in 2020 and its programs were relocated ahead of the expiration, a spokesperson for NewYork-Presbyterian told Patch. The Wright Center's former website now lists its services as part of Weill Cornell's main medical campus on East 68th Street.

The clinic building appears to have been in disrepair: in 2018, someone complained to the Department of Buildings that "the building that I see my doctor in is falling apart," adding that they saw rodents and leaky ceilings.

Another complaint in 2019 said that heavy metal signage fell off the building's facade, endangering passersby.

Chukroon, the owner, is the founder of the real estate investment company Brooklyn North Capital, whose other projects have included a new condo building at 165 Lexington Ave.

He did not respond to emailed questions about plans for the First Avenue site.