John Sloan's 1924 898 Park Avenue

 

photo by Jim Henderson

In 1923, two years after Henry Mandel hired architect John Sloan to design his Pershing Square Building at Park Avenue and 42nd Street, he commissioned Sloan for a much different project--an ultra-exclusive apartment building at the southwest corner of Park Avenue and 79th Street.  The posh tenor of the neighborhood was reflected in the price Mandel paid for the corner.  The $207,500 would translate to $3.8 million in 2026.

Although Adolph E. Nast was listed as assistant architect, it is Sloan who routinely gets credit for the design.  Drawing inspiration from what The New York Times described as "the pre-Renaissance style of Northern Italy," Sloan's tripartite was sprinkled with arched corbel tables above the first, fourth, twelfth floors, and fourteenth floors, and a stately arcade above the entrance.  His choice of variegated beige, black and brown brick prompted The American Architect to say he used it "in the same way the artist painter mixes his colors."  The roof was paved in red tile and an arcaded penthouse.

Completed in October 1924, the the 14-story building held only six cooperative apartments on the upper floors (there was a simplex and a doctor's suite on the ground floor).  An advertisement called them, "8 exclusive apartments at Park Avenue's most exclusive corner."  Each of the other apartments were duplexes--each comprising two full floors, "with a private stairway of travertine stone and wrought iron balustrade, leading from the living room floor to the bedroom suite on the upper floor," explained The New York Times on October 6, 1924.

Among the initial buyers were George Winfield Fairchild, Allerton Seward Cushman, and Charles X. Cordier.  

Born in Oneonta, New York on May 6, 1854, Fairchild had served as a U.S. Representative from 1907 to 1919.  He had been, as well, the vice president of the 1919 International Peace Conference.  Before his political career, he owned the Oneonta Herald Publishing Co. and president of the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company.

Fairchild married Josephine Mills Sherman in 1891 and they had one child, Sherman Mills Fairchild.  He purchased his 13th-and-14th floor apartment in May 1924, five months after his Josephine died.  

George Winthrop Fairchild, from the collection of the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

Fairchild was still president of the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company when he left Congress, and was its chairman in February 1924 when the firm was renamed IBM.

George Winthrop Fairchild would not enjoy his sprawling apartment for long.  On December 31, 1924, newspapers throughout the country reported that he had died "of acute heart trouble."

Like Fairchild, Allerton Seward Cushman was a recent widower.  Born in the American Consulate at Rome in 1867, he earned his M. A. and Ph.D. in chemistry at Harvard in 1896 and 1897.  In 1910 he founded the Institute of Industrial Research in Washington D.C.   Cushman's wife, the former Sarah Hoppin, died in 1921.  They had one son, Charles Van Brunt Cushman.

Three years later, he relocated to New York City as a consulting chemist, and purchased the fifth-and-sixth-floor apartment.  He married Katherine McCausland Inglis-Jones in 1926.  

Allerton Seward Cushman and his second wife, Katherine Inglis-Jones.  (original sources unknown)

Katherine (known familiarly as Kay) was in Europe on April 30, 1930 when Allerton underwent an operation at the Park East Hospital.  The 62-year-old died there two days later.

Charles Xavier Cordier and his wife, the former Suzanne Sanford, took the second-and-third-floor apartment in May 1925.  Both were born in 1875 and had a daughter, Marjorie Case.  The family maintained a country estate, The Four Ways, in Sharon, Connecticut.  

The Cordiers announced Marjorie's engagement to William Holland Lawrence Shears on December 22, 1926.  Four months earlier, another family in the building, the Haley Fiskes, had announced their daughter's engagement.

An attorney, Haley Fiske was born on March 18, 1852.  He was a partner in the law firm Arnoux, Ritch & Woodford and since 1891 had been president of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.  He and his first wife, Mary Garrettena Mulford, who died in 1886, had one daughter, Helen.  Fiske married Marione Cowles Cushman on April 27, 1887.  (The New York Times noted that she "is a descendant of Robert Cushman of Mayflower fame.")  They had five children and their youngest daughter, Margaret Lois, was still unmarried and lived with her parents.  The family's country home, Overcross, was in Bernardsville, New Jersey. 

Haley Fiske, Nation's Business, May 20, 1927 (copyright expired)

On August 15, 1926, The New York Times reported on Margaret Lois's engagement to Martin Edwin Walker 3d.  The article mentioned that the prospective bride "was presented to society several years ago."  The ceremony was held in the Church of St. Mary the Virgin on October 28 that year and the reception was held in the Fiske apartment.

Two years later, on March 19, 1928, The New York Times reported on Fiske's 76th birthday celebration, which was highlighted by "five children, seven grandchildren and a clean bill of health."  The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company's physicians had examined him a few days earlier and "gave up and admitted that they could find nothing wrong with him."  The article said that the Fiske apartment "looked like a florist shop, every room except the kitchen being filled with flowers, while hundreds of telegrams were received."

Ironically, one year later almost to the day, at around 12:30 on March 3, 1929 the Fiskes' chauffeur pulled up to the curb in front of 898 Park Avenue following church services at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin.  Before he could exit the automobile, Fiske died from an embolism of the heart, as reported by the newspaper.

(Eerily, according to Metropolitan Life Insurance Company employees, when someone entered Fiske's private office the following morning, the "large grandfather clock in Mr. Fiske's inner office, which had run steadily for twenty years, had stopped.")

The New York Times reported Fiske's estate at the equivalent of $15.6 million in 2026.  Marione inherited the apartment, Overcross and the bulk of her husband's fortune.  

Ery Euripides Kehaya and his wife, the former Grace Whittaker, were also initial residents.  Born in Ordou, Turkey on February 18, 1885, Kehaya was the son of a Greek Orthodox priest.  He grew up in the tobacco growing regions of Asia Minor and southern Europe.  He came to the United States in 1910 and founded the Standard Commercial Tobacco Company in 1912.

Grace Whittaker was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  Her father, William A. Whittaker was a prominent tobacco merchant.  The couple was married in 1917 and they had one son, Ery W. 

Ery Euripides Kehaya (original source unknown)

Like their neighbors in the building, society columnists followed the Kehayas' movements.  On February 20, 1927, for instance, The New York Times reported:

Mr. and Mrs. Ery Kehaya and Ery Kehaya Jr. [sic] of 898 Park Avenue have gone to Whitehall, Palm Beach, for the remainder of the season.  In the Spring they will tour Europe.  In Greece they will visit President Condouriotis, who recently, through the Greek Minister...bestowed on Mr. Kehaya the highest decoration of the Greek Republic for his relief work and his services in the cause of education.

The Kehayas also routinely appeared in the society columns for their entertainments both here and at their Westchester home.

Dr. George David Stewart and his wife, the former Ida Robb, purchased the 13th-and-14th-floor apartment in May 1924.  Born in Nova Scotia in 1862, Stewart graduated from Bellevue Hospital Medical College in 1889.  He was president of the American College of Surgeons, of the New York Academy of Medicine, and headed the medical boards of St. Vincent's and Bellevue Hospitals.

This portrait of George D. Stewart was painted by H. Harris Brown.  from the Lillian & Clarence de la Chapelle Medical Archives

The couple had four daughters, the youngest of whom, Mary Leslie, was unmarried and lived with her parents.  The family's country home was in Great River, Long Island.

Although Mary Leslie would not be introduced to society until the winter season of 1930-31, her parents got ahead of the game a year earlier.  On November 6, 1929, The New York Times reported, "Dr. and Mrs. George David Stewart of 898 Park Avenue will give a dinner dance on Dec. 27 at the Central Park Casino for their daughter, Miss Mary Leslie Stewart."  

On February 27, 1933, Dr. Stewart became ill.  Eleven days later, he died in the Park Avenue apartment from uremic poisoning.  In reporting his death, The New York Times called him "one of the foremost surgeons in the United States."  The article recalled that on April 18, 1928, a bronze bust of him had been placed in the Carnegie lecture room of the Bellevue Hospital Medical Centre.

via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services

By 1934, the Hoyt Augustus Moores occupied an apartment here.  A native of Ellsworth, Maine, Moore graduated from Bowdoin College in 1895 and received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1904.  He and his wife, Lora, had two children, Edward P. and Dorothy Parsons.  

Edward was the first to marry.  His marriage to Barbara Freeman took place in Mount Vernon, New York on June 13, 1934.  Dorothy was not far behind.  Her engagement to James Wilson Tower was announced in September 1937 during her senior year at Smith College.

The wedding would have to wait until Dorothy's graduation, but anticipatory celebrations took place before that.  On January 3, 1938, The New York Times reported that the Moores hosted a reception the previous day "for their daughter, Miss Dorothy Parsons Moore, and her fiancé."

Among the Moores' neighbors in the building were the Alanson Gibbs Fox family.  Fox was born in 1879 and his wife, Mary Cumming Humstone, was born in 1881.  The couple was married on September 29, 1923 and their son, Alvin Gibbs, was born in 1927.  The family's country home was Pittsfield, in Berkshire Hills, Massachusetts.

No. 898 Park Avenue was the only town home that Alvin Gibbs Fox ever knew.  He attended the Collegiate School of New York and graduated from Yale in 1950.  His engagement to Nancy Louis O'Connell was announced on June 28 that year.  

Alanson Gibbs Fox died on February 9, 1951 at the age of 71 and was buried in the Pittsfield Cemetery in Massachusetts.  

Unexpectedly, his father's death did not delay Alvin's wedding plans.  He and Nancy were married in Pittsfield, Massachusetts five months later, on July 28, 1951.

Perhaps the most socially prominent couple in the building at the time were I. Townsend Burden Jr. and his wife, the former Florence Sheedy.  The couple, who were married in 1911, had two sons, I. Townsend Burden III and Dennis Sheedy.  Burden was the corporation lawyer for the New York Transit Company and the president of the Burden Iron Company, founded by his grandfather, Henry Burden.  The family's Newport estate, Fairlawn, was formerly owned by Levi Morton.  

The Burdens' Newport mansion, Fairlawn, sits on Bellevue Avenue.  image via americanaristocracy.com

The family was at Fairlawn on August 10, 1949, when Florence died at the age of 61.  Almost immediately, I. Townsend Burden sold the estate. 

On July 16, 1953, Burden and his sister, Evelyn Bird Burden, arrived in Newport.  Three days later he suffered a heart attack and died on July 20 at the age of 77.

The second half of the century saw two entertainment figures in the building, conductor Richard Kaye Korn, here as early as 1956, and theatrical producer and director John Chapman Wilson.

Korn and his wife, the former Peggy Rosenbaum Lehman, had two daughters, Penelope Lehman and Wendy Lehman.  A graduate of Princeton University and the Yale Law School, Korn turned his back on law for a full-time musical career.  He studied conducting under Leon Barzin at the Juilliard School of Music and Serge Koussevitzky at Tanglewood.  He was assistant conductor of the National Orchestral Association and appeared as guest conductor throughout the United States and Europe.

In 1959, Korn founded the Orchestra of America, described by The New York Times as "one of the first orchestras designed to encourage the participation of minority-group musicians."  The Korns were still living here in 1981 when Richard died in the apartment from leukemia on April 27, 1981.

Born in 1899, John Chapman Wilson was a long-time associate of Noel Coward, acting as his business manager, director or producer.  His wife was the former Princess Natalie Paley, daughter of Grand Duke Paul of Russia.  Among the many Broadway hits he either directed or produced were Kiss Me Kate, Private Lives, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Blithe Spirit.

In 1970, James and Manuela Goren (both of whom were born in Italy) purchased the thirteenth-and-fourteenth-floor apartment and connected it to the penthouse by an elevator to create a triplex.  James was a partner in the investment bank and real estate development company Goren Brothers, and Manuela was a correspondent for Italian Vogue and L'Uomo Vogue.  The couple had two children.

Their resultant four-bedroom apartment included a 550-square-foot wrapped terrace, a library with the original 1924 paneling, and a living room ceiling, "brought over from a chateau in France," as reported by The New York Times.  Manuela described it as having, "all the advantages of a town house, and none of the disadvantages."  Thirty years after moving in, the Gorens placed the triplex on the market in 2010 for $15 million.

photograph by Deans Charbal

As it was in 1924, 898 Park Avenue is one of the most exclusive apartment buildings in New York City.