810 Fifth Avenue

810 Fifth Avenue is a luxury residential housing cooperative in Manhattan, New York City.

810 Fifth is located on the northeast corner of East 62nd Street, across the street from the Knickerbocker Club. It was designed by J. E. R. Carpenter for the Bricken Construction Company and built in 1926 on the site of a house owned by Mrs. Hamilton Fish. It is a 13-story, limestone-clad building in Italian Renaissance-palazzo style.[1][2] It is one of the most expensive addresses in the city.[3]

The building contains only 12 apartments: a ground floor maisonette, 10 full-floor apartments and a multi-floor penthouse. [4] Each full floor apartment has 5,000 square feet (460 m2) of space, four bedrooms and four servants rooms.[5] The elevator opens into a private entrance foyer on each floor. Every apartment has windows overlooking Central Park. The detailing of the exterior in "elegant... limestone-clad, Italian Renaissance-palazzo style" is carried into the lobby, which features bronze torchieres and an elaborate carved plasterwork ceiling.[6] [7] The New York Times once speculated that 810 might be the only apartment building in the city to have "more employees than apartments."[8]

Nelson Rockefeller lived in a two floor apartment with his first wife Mary Todhunter Clark. The 30-room apartment was renovated for the Rockefellers by Wallace Harrison and decorated by Jean-Michel Frank.[9] She retained the apartment after the divorce, while Rockefeller moved to a penthouse that encompasses the building's top three floors with his second wife, Margaretta Fitler ("Happy") Murphy.[10][1] The apartment was expanded by purchasing a floor of 812 Fifth Avenue. The two spaces connected via a flight of six steps.[11] Rockefeller and his second wife used the entrance at 812 Fifth while his first wife entered through 810 Fifth.[12][13]

In 1963 former Vice President Richard Nixon bought an apartment in the building.[2][14] During the 1968 presidential contest, Nixon and Rockefeller used different elevators.[15] Nixon held meetings in his fifth-floor apartment during the campaign, including an early meeting with the man who would become his Vice-President, Spiro Agnew.[16]

In 2000, the building's board of directors turned down an application by Gary Winnick to buy the former Nelson Rockefeller apartment.[17] Notable residents have included Felix Rohatyn and former Archer Daniels Midland CEO Dwayne Andreas. David Geffen moved into 810 in 2006 but moved to 785 Fifth Avenue in 2010. [18]

References

  1. 1 2 Rozhon, Tracie (October 14, 1999). "A Rockefeller Fixer-Upper". New York Times.
  2. 1 2 Alpern, Andrew (1992). Luxury Apartment Houses of Manhattan: an illustrated History. New York City, New York: Courier Dover Publications. pp. 110–112. ISBN 0-486-27370-9.
  3. ↑ Appraising the Most Expensive Apartment Houses in the City, Dorothy Kalins Wise, New York Magazine, May 20, 1968, pp. 18-26.
  4. ↑ Rockefeller Penthouse Suffers a Pricy Blow; Co-op Nixes Renovations, Kate Kelly and Carmela Ciuraru January 16, 2000, The Observer
  5. ↑ Luxury apartment houses of Manhattan: an illustrated history, Andrew Alpern, Dover Publications, 1992, pp. 110-111.
  6. ↑ Carter B. Horsley, The Upper East Side Book,
  7. ↑ Luxury apartment houses of Manhattan: an illustrated history, Andrew Alpern, Dover Publications, 1992, pp. 110-111.
  8. ↑ Presidential Politics Yields to Privacy At Apartments of 3 Candidates Here; WHERE PRIVACY ECLIPSES POLITICS, March 18, 1968, New York Times
  9. ↑ February 27, 2008 Rock It Like A Rockefeller,
  10. ↑ http://www.thecityreview.com/ues/fifave/fif810.htm
  11. ↑ Luxury apartment houses of Manhattan: an illustrated history, Andrew Alpern, Dover Publications, 1992, p. 112.
  12. ↑ February 27, 2008, Rock It Like A Rockefeller,
  13. ↑ Presidential Politics Yields to Privacy At Apartments of 3 Candidates Here; WHERE PRIVACY ECLIPSES POLITICS, March 18, 1968, New York Times
  14. ↑ http://www.thecityreview.com/ues/fifave/fif810.htm
  15. ↑ Luxury apartment houses of Manhattan: an illustrated history, Andrew Alpern, Dover Publications, 1992, p. 112.
  16. ↑ NIXON CONSULTS WITH GOV. AGNEW; Meets Rockefeller Supporter Here in Bid for Liberals, March 30, 1968, New York Times
  17. ↑ Rockefeller Penthouse Suffers a Pricy Blow; Co-op Nixes Renovations, Kate Kelly and Carmela Ciuraru January 16, 2000, The Observer
  18. ↑ Toy, Vivian S. (February 25, 2010). "Geffen Buys Fifth Avenue Co-op for $14 Million". New York Times.

Coordinates: 40°45′58″N 73°58′16.5″W / 40.76611°N 73.971250°W / 40.76611; -73.971250

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