The 1928 Bergdorf Goodman Building - 58th Street and Fifth Avenue

 

photo by Ajay Suresh

In 1925, Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt had outlived the grande dames of her generation like Caroline Schermerhorn Astor and Marion Fish.  Her massive mansion that engulfed the Fifth Avenue blockfront from 57th to 58th Street, which had been the showpiece of Millionaire's Row at the turn of the century, was now an anachronism.  One-by-one, the mansions of Alice's former neighbors had been replaced with high-rise commercial buildings.  The 80-year-old and her army of servants lived within a Gilded Age time capsule amid a 20th century sea of commerce.

Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt's palatial home was engulfed by 20th century business buildings.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

That year, Alice Vanderbilt offered the mansion that had been her home for nearly half a century for sale, saying "it had become a burden," according to The New York Times.  In November, a syndicate headed by G. Maurice Hecksher offered $7.1 million for the property, announcing it would "improve the site with a fifty-six-story apartment hotel," said the newspaper.  The deal fell through, however.

On June 16, 1926, The New York Times reported that the mansion "was disposed of finally yesterday by Mrs. Alice G. Vanderbilt to Frederick Brown."  The real estate operator had paid $6 million, or about $103 million in 2025 terms.  "The fate of the mansion, which was built by the late Cornelius Vanderbilt at a cost of millions of dollars, is undetermined," said the article.

That situation soon changed.  One of the last surviving landmarks of what was once called Vanderbilt Row, or sometimes Vanderbilt Alley, was demolished.  Brown hired Buchman & Kahn to design eight stores and office buildings  on the site.  (The plans would eventually change to seven.)  Ely Jacques Kahn headed the project, designing the grouping visually as a unified structure.  His Modern Classical design greatly drew from French Renaissance prototypes in order to complement the surrounding structures, most notably Henry J. Hardenberg's Plaza Hotel.

Ely Jacques Kahn's Fifth Avenue elevation clearly depicts the separate buildings, from the Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University.

Completed in 1928, the buildings were designed in a symmetrical A-B-C-D-C-B-A configuration.  The end buildings, nearly twice the width of the others, rose nine floors, while the middle structures were six stories tall.  On March 11, 1928, The New York Times described, "the exterior of the building is of white South Dover marble with green bronze window trim, balcony and doorway, and a sloping roof of green tiles, thus carrying out the color scheme of other buildings on the plaza."

In the meantime, Alsace-born Herman Bergdorf had opened a tailor shop near Union Square in 1899.  Two years later, his former apprentice, 25-year-old Edwin Goodman, partnered with him and the business was renamed Bergdorf Goodman.   In 1906, Edwin Goodman purchased Bergdorf's interest.  Increasingly he established a reputation of a high-end women's tailor.  In an example of his marketing acumen, in 1914 he was the first Manhattan women's clothier to offer sophisticated, ready-to-wear fashions.

Brown's first tenant was Bergdorf Goodman, which signed a 21-year lease for the building on the southwest corner of 58th Street and Fifth Avenue in March 1927.  Because the building was still under construction, Edwin Goodman was able to provide design input to Kahn, including an apartment for Goodman's family on the ninth floor.

image by Sigurd Fischer, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

Goodman specified opulent, French-style interiors.  Shoppers would move through rooms that echoed the salons and parlors of the Fifth Avenue mansions of a generation earlier.  Architecture & Building described the store in March 1928 saying, "The interior follow the French styles of the Louis' and the Empire with a savoring of modern French decoration...The principal entrance at the center of 58th Street leads into an elliptical rotunda in the style of the Empire."

On March 1931, Through The Ages captioned this photograph, "Entrance rotunda, Bergdorf Goodman Building.  The walls are of Biegenelle, the base and pilasters of Loredo Chiaro-marble. 

An advertisement in Country Life in America in 1928 reflected the surroundings in which wealthy women here shopped. 

Here women of critical taste may observe clothes of the highest fashion...One may judge, before purchasing, how such clothes will look when worn in one's own drawing room.

Like the most exclusive fashion houses of Paris, there were no goods to be seen.  Architecture & Building explained, "Here, as elsewhere throughout the building, the effect is of beautifully decorated and furnished salons wherein no merchandise is displayed."  Instead, customers sat in French chairs or settees while a saleswoman (called a vendeuse) brought out the items one-by-one for consideration.

Through the Ages magazine, March 1931

The southernmost four buildings were called the Dobbs Building, named after tenant Dobbs & Company, a hat retailer.  Another initial neighbor of Bergdorf Goodman on the block was the upscale restaurant Sherry's. 

In 1932, three years into the Great Depression, Frederick Brown declared bankruptcy and in 1934 he lost the property to foreclosure.  Edwin Goodman took the opportunity the next year to purchase the three northern buildings for $3 million (more than $66.5 million today).  By now his firm's remarkable success had made the staggering outlay possible.  In 1929, he had expanded through the sixth floor of the northern building.  In 1931, Fortune magazine had noted that none of the couturier houses in Manhattan, "has succeeded in clothing women in an exclusive way on so magnificent a scale as that which Mr. Goodman has achieved, with 18,000 customers on his books."

Despite the ongoing Depression, other chic tenants moved into the other buildings.  On July 9, 1934, The New York Times reported that Grande Maison de Blanc had leased the building at 746 Fifth Avenue, "one of the buildings on the Vanderbilt 'chateau' site."  Founded in around 1872, the firm dealt in children's and women's clothing.  Steuben Glass occupied the store next door, at 748 at the time.  It would move across the avenue in 1937, the same year that the Parke-Bernet Galleries took over four floors of the Dobbs Building.

from the collection of the New York Public Library

Other tenants to move in included two women's shops, the Tailored Woman, Inc. and Mary Lewis, Inc., both of which signed a lease in 1939; and the French jewelry firm of Van Cleef & Arpels, which moved into the building in 1940.

All the while those tenants were signing leases, Edward Goodman was methodically purchasing the mortgages of the buildings.  By 1948, Goodman owned the entire blockfront.

On August 20, 1953, The New York Times reported, "Edwin Goodman, who at the age of 24 became a co-founder of Bergdorf Goodman...died early yesterday at his penthouse, atop the store 754 Fifth Avenue."  Calling the 76-year-old, "one of the most eminent figures in American haute couture and merchandising," the article said, "He catered to the wealthiest women of Hollywood and society and employed debutantes and members of royalty."  (The latter referred to vendeuses like Kay Summersby, who became Dwight D. Eisenhower's wartime aide, and the Grand Duchess Marie of Russia.)

Goodman's son, Andrew, took over the helm of Bergdorf Goodman.  At the time, the store extended the width of the Fifth Avenue property, other than the Van Cleef & Arpels shop.  (By 1998, the Goodman penthouse would be converted to a commercial space, home that year to the John Barrett Beauty Salon.)

In 1984, architect Allan Greenberg was hired to undo the decades of mismatched storefronts that had disfigured Buchman & Kahn's lower two floors.  As part of his renovations, Greenberg installed an imposing entrance on Fifth Avenue similar to the original entrance on West 58th Street.  

After seven decades of city grime, in the summer of 1998 Bellett Construction of Manhattan was commissioned to clean the marble facade.  At the time, the original bronze windows and trim on 58th Street were restored.

photograph by Tdorante10

At a time when the word "iconic" is tossed around to the point that it has lost its meaning, Buchman & Kahn's striking marble Bergman Goodman Building is one rare structure deserves that description.