Category:Livingston Apartments, Allentown, Pennsylvania

The Livingston building is located at 1411 Hamilton street in Allentown.

It was opened in 1928 as a prestige apartment building for wealthy residents. The building had 33 apartments, some with space for live-in servants. The building featured beautiful ceiling and side walls, down to the smallest detail the reproduction is faithfully done. The exquisite marble work, the handsome wrought iron fittings, the lighting effects, the stained glass windows hung with charming draperies, and the grill work give to the Livingston apartments an air of distinction such as is seldom found outside of ultra fashionable apartment buildings in the larger cities. The building also had a roof garden.

Built in the era before air conditioning, many people had a sleeping porch, the Livingston provided its tenants with sweeping views of the city that included the new PP&L tower skyscraper and the handsome Americus Hotel.

Through the 1970s the building was maintained in first class condition with Class-A tenants. There was a uniformed doorman in the lobby and an elevator operator. One tenant who moved into the Livingston with her mother in 1941 recalled in the 1980s how every morning the superintendent, who wore a linen jacket over his suit coat, came down and polished the chrome till it was spotless. And in the summer time she recalled spending hours covered with cocoa butter getting a suntan on the roof.

In 1976 when property was sold to Connolly Properties. Connolly oversaw about 60 properties in Pennsylvania and New Jersey including some in Allentown. By the 1990s the building had lost its charm and needed major renovations. In 2009, Allentown building inspectors issued citations against Connolly for failing to pay required fees and numerous violations. The city ordered the building closed and the last tenant was evicted from the building. In 2010, Connolly properties filed for bankruptcy.

For the next several years the Livingston building was vacant while the New York Community Bank, who held the deed to the building, was looking for the 'right price'. Property redeveloper Nat Hyman bought the building in 2012 and began a thorough renovation of the building and its 37 apartments. By 2014, the building was reopened as an upper-end apartment building with rents ranging from $900 to $1500