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Project: 520 West 45th Street (Conversion)

The 18-unit development, from the Gotham Organization, is housed at 520 West 45th Street inside a former grade school, with enough vintage flourishes to make it feel as if a teacher is going to walk around the corner at any second.

On the ground level, the small gym, which opens to an outdoor lounge, also evokes the past. A tile mosaic on the wall spells out “P.S. 51,” the public school that was the previous occupant and that moved to West 44th Street. And the gym’s ceiling fans are encased in cages, as if to insure that no stray basketballs get shredded.

The lobby features a card-catalog-type mailbox, which resembles the menu-stuffed card catalog AvroKO installed in Public, the NoLIta restaurant the firm designed.

Though reproductions may fill Inkwell, some mementos were preserved elsewhere. For instance, a wall-mounted pencil sharpener wound up in AvroKO’s conference room, Mr. Goodrich said, along with a 1990s-era fire-drill poster. A claim to fame for the school is that, in 1908, it was one of the first to serve lunch to its students, according to a site study by AKRF, an environmental, planning and engineering consulting firm.

Prices at Inkwell, which is being marketed by Brown Harris Stevens Development Marketing, start at about $1.78 million for two-bedrooms and average about $1,600 per square foot. Sales are expected to begin in late summer, and the condominium is expected to open in the fall.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/19/re...imageslideshow