Sylvan Bien's 1940 737 Park Avenue

 

photo by Godsfriendchuck

Born in Austria, architect Sylvan Bien emigrated to San Francisco to work on the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition.  He relocated to New York City in 1919.  By the 1930s he was designing mostly apartment buildings and hotels.

In 1939, the 737 Park Avenue Corp. demolished seven rowhouses at the northeast corner of Park Avenue and 71st Street.  Bien was commissioned to design an apartment building on the site.  He blended traditional French neo-Classical motifs into his Art Moderne design.  Completed in 1940, the building's five-story limestone base upheld 14 stories of red brick.  At the upper floors, Greek key bands and classical pediments harkened to French Empire prototypes.

This rendering graced the cover of the 1940 brochure which touted the "architectural standards of the general Empire style."  from the Avery Library collection of Columbia University

The lobby was designed to impress.  The real estate brochure said, "The floor is terrazzo with matched marble wainscot.  Several large wall paintings by a well known mural artist are used to bring warmth and interest to the entire entrance and elevator lobby."

Two views of the lobby in 1941.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

Potential tenants could select apartments ranging from three to eight rooms.  "Some suites have terraces, and there are several 3 and 6 room duplex arrangements," said the brochure, which noted, "All have large galleries, with powder and dressing rooms in most, while many have maids' rooms.  Additional maids' rooms are available on the first floor."

The "special apartments" were on the 18th and 19th floors.  The "C" model included seven rooms, four baths, a dressing room, powder room, library and dining room, plus three terraces.  The brochure promised the apartments would "satisfy the most rigorous demands for prestige and distinction."

The three "special" apartments on the 18th and 19th floors all had terraces.  from the Avery Library collection of Columbia University

As the building neared completion in September 1940, S. R. Firestone, vice president of Pease & Elliman, told a reporter from The New York Times that 737 Park Avenue reflected a change in Manhattan lifestyle.  He said that builders were "providing discriminating Manhattan apartment residents with the same type of accommodations they enjoyed in earlier years but with fewer rooms and on a substantially lower rental basis."  He was quick to add, "There has been, however, no sacrifice of comfort or convenience."  The article continued, "Mr. Firestone states that many of these smaller suites in the 737 Park Avenue house have been taken by tenants who are vacating twelve-room suites."

photo by "Eden, Janine and Jim"

Among the first was Dr. Roy Chapman Andrews, who signed a lease on April 19, 1940, months before construction would be completed.  He would move in with his second wife, Wilhelmina Christmas.  Born in 1884, Andrews was described by The New York Times as "naturalist, explorer and director of the American Museum of Natural History."  He traveled the globe on various expeditions, cataloging wildlife and discovering fossils.  (The Andrewsarchus was named for him.)  When he and Wilhelmina moved into 737 Park Avenue he had written ten books, including the 1921 Across Mongolian Plains and the 1929 Ends of the Earth, and would go on to write 13 more.

Andrews made the cover of Time magazine on October 29, 1923.  (copyright expired)

Most residents of 737 Park Avenue had country homes, while a few kept apartments here as their city pied-à-terre.  That was the case with Irving and Renee Weisner.  The couple was married on June 3, 1958 and moved into a 27-room, 10-bath house in Woodmere, Long Island.  They rented an apartment here for those evenings when they came into the city.  Testimony in their divorce case said the apartment, "was used...only occasionally, not exceeding approximately 20 nights during the three years of their marriage, and was used by [Renee] mainly for the purpose of changing her clothes when the parties had a social engagement."

The apartment of S. Beutsch included this clever bar with acrylic feet and Erté type decorations.  It was photographed by Gottscho-Schleisner, Inc. in a closed position...

...and opened position on March 21, 1941.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

The family of William Olden lived here by the early 1960s.  Born in Berlin, Germany in 1909, Olden arrived in America in 1938.  He and his wife, the former Margot Cohnreich, had two children, Barbara Evelyn (known in society as Bambi), and Robert.  Olden started out with a small camera business, and by the time the family moved in to 737 Park Avenue it was "one of the most successful retail and mail-order camera concerns in the country," according to The New York Times. 

Like the daughters of other well-heeled families, Bambi Olden received an enviable education.  She attended the Calhoun School, the Russell Sage College, Le Grand Verger (a finishing school in Lausanne, Switzerland), and the Sarah Lawrence College summer session in Florence, Italy.  When her engagement to Roger H. Felberbaum was announced in April 1964, she was a senior at New York University.

A fascinating resident was Barbara Gabard, who moved in around 1968.  Born to a wealthy Jewish family in Poland in 1912, her first husband was Nathan Padowicz.  Following his suicide, she married Leon Waisbrem, an industrialist.  They lived in Warsaw where their son Julian was born in 1933.  At the outbreak of World War II, she and Julian escaped to Brazil, while Leon remained behind to fight in the Polish Army.

Her escape from Europe resulted in a book, Flight to Freedom, which was published in 1941.  Barbara's husband did not survive the war, and in 1945 she married Pierre Gabard in London.  He became Consul for France in Philadelphia where Barbara was a celebrated hostess and socialite.  Gabard died in 1967 and shortly afterward Barbara moved to New York City and 737 Park Avenue.

This portrait of Barbara Gabard was created by Francois Gilot in 1955.  private collection 

On December 9, 1973, the "Suzy Says" column of the Daily News said, 

Mrs. Pierre Gabard, author of "Flight to Freedom," and widow of the French resistance her0-diplomat, put a big dinner party together to honor Alain Chailloux, chief of press for the French Embassy.  About 60 crowded into Barbara Gabard's Auntie Mame-ish Park Ave. apartment where the Louis XV furniture, the Legers, Mary Cassatt, Pissaros and Picassos combine raffishly with the Alexander Libermans.  It's one way of doing it.

Despite the glittering parties, the antique French furniture and the museum-quality art collection, Barbara Gabard suffered from what was described as "a history of depression."  Two weeks after the party, on the night of December 30, a friend, Seward Kennedy, visited her.  Around 2:50 a.m., according to Kennedy, Barbara left the living room.  The New York Times reported, "When she didn't return, he said, he went to investigate and found she jumped from the 12th-floor window."  She was declared dead upon arrival at Metropolitan Hospital.

image via corcoran.com

In 2011 the CIM Group acquired 737 Park Avenue and began a conversion to condominiums.  The 104 rental apartments became 56 resident-owned units.  The full-floor penthouse sold in June 2015 for $32.6 million.  The New York Times noted, "The apartment was sold as a 'white box,' without interior walls or finishes, though it does include a wood-burning fireplace."

many thanks to reader Lowell Cochrane for suggesting this post

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