Stepping onto the grounds of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village can seem like walking into a pleasantly jarring mirage in the middle of the city.  

This private residential community looks more like a sprawling college campus than a downtown Manhattan neighborhood, but as it’s sandwiched between the East Village, Union Square and Gramercy, its residents get the best of all worlds in the middle of downtown.  Built towards the end of World War II and originally earmarked as housing for returning veterans, the eighty-acre development has changed hands over the years in a number of landmark deals and remains privately owned to this day.  

Bordered by the East Village on the south, Gramercy on the west, the East River on the east, and Kips Bay on the north, ‘Stuy Town,’ as it’s known amongst its residents, provides beautifully landscaped grounds and huge-for-Manhattan apartments steps away from lower Manhattan’s busy streets but insulated against all the noise and bustle.  Its 25,000 inhabitants get the singular experience of calling a lush park in the center of the city their home.