Back in 2005, a team of developers purchased The Sheffield -- which was then known as Sheffield 57 and has always been located at 322 West 57th Street -- for $418 million. That was a record for a residential building in Manhattan, but impressive though that price tag was, it made sense. The Sheffield had a prime Midtown West location, a host of luxurious apartments for sale, and the promise of a stellar suite of amenities. But while The Sheffield was then, as it is now, one of the more interesting condo listings in Manhattan, what happened between then and now was, if anything, too interesting.

A seemingly unending series of legal disputes (and an Andrew Cuomo-mandated sales freeze) kept The Sheffield in the news, but also kept it from living up to its sky-high potential as one of the elite condo listings in Midtown West. For awhile. But in 2011, The Sheffield -- now free of that "57," and free of all that drama as well -- has belatedly and deservingly emerged as a legitimate Manhattan condominium success story. Once interesting for all the wrong reasons, The Sheffield is, at last, back where it belonged -- on lists of the most desirable condo listings in midtown.