40 East 88th Street

While it is only 10 blocks long from south to north (86th to 96th) and a few blocks wide (from Third Avenue to Central Park), Carnegie Hill is home to many of the city’s leading museums, top private schools, and most luxurious homes. It is in some ways a concentrated version of the essential character of the Upper East Side — or at least the part of it that is synonymous with New York’s wealthy elite. The neighborhood’s history as an enclave for the rich dates back more than a century. It gets its name, after all, from Andrew Carnegie’s mansion on Fifth Avenue. It has never faltered, though over the years some of those mansions (including Carnegie’s) have been converted to other uses. Still, the rowhouses on its side streets and the apartments in buildings with sometimes infamously strict co-op boards are some of Manhattan’s most expensive real estate.