To the left of the new building is the William K. Vanderbilt Jr mansion. The Brickbuilder, November 11, 1916 (copyright expired)
On March 23, 1913, The New York Times began an article saying, "The business invasion of Fifth Avenue north of Forty-second Street goes on ruthlessly." Sumptuous mansions were rapidly being replaced by commercial buildings. The article reported, "Workmen last week began tearing down the big Gallatin house on the southwest corner of Fifty-third Street, purchased a short time ago by Michael Dreicer for over $1,000,000. Two six-story business buildings are to be erected on the 50-foot Fifth Avenue frontage."
Michael Dreicer was the son of Jacob Dreicer, who opened his jewelry business in 1868. They are credited for bringing cut gems into fashion, surpassing pearls. The younger Dreicer had now branched into real estate development with the Dreicer Realty Company. He hired Henry Otis Chapman to design the side-by-side buildings. Construction would cost $130,000 to erect, or about $4.4 million in 2026 terms.
Chapman's Francois I Revival design was intended to harmoniously co-exist on the block with the magnificent Petite Chateau, erected for William K. and Alva Vanderbilt, and 666 Fifth Avenue, the Willie K. and "Birdie" Oelrichs Vanderbilt mansion. The Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide approved, calling 668-670 Fifth Avenue "one of the most attractive on the avenue, built in the Francois Premier style of architecture."
Like the two surviving mansions on the block, the buildings were faced in limestone. The first and second floors of 668 Fifth Avenue were dominated by a vast, double-height show window capped by a French Gothic header and crocket. Grouped windows at the third and fourth floors sat below square-headed drip moldings. The steep mansard was fronted by a French Gothic dormer and crowned with lacy cast iron cresting.
The corner building continued many of those motifs--the double-height show window and the grouped openings at the third and fourth floors, for instance. A row of ornate dormers lined the mansard on the 53rd Street side, and identical rooftop cresting visually unified the structures.
No. 668 had been leased before the first shovel broke ground. Nearly two weeks before The New York Times article, on March 10, 1913, The Furniture Trade Review reported that Theodore Hofstatter & Co. had "closed negotiations" for leasing the building "for a term of twenty-one years." The article noted, "Hofstatter & Co., are in the interior decorating and furniture business, are now located at 589 Fifth avenue."
The buildings were completed in 1914 and very quickly the Hofstatter Building was the center of excitement. On May 19, 1914, an alarm "brought the firemen to the home of Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, Jr., at 666 Fifth Avenue," reported The New York Times. The Vanderbilts were at their summer estate and heavy smoke was seen pouring out of one of the chimneys.
The Vanderbilts' caretaker notified the responding firefighters that there was no fire. "About ten minutes later the blaze was discovered in the building occupied by Hofstatter & Co.," said the article. "Decorators had been working on the fifth floor, and in some manner, a curtain became ignited." Happily, the fire was extinguished before it could spread. The New York Times said, "More than $500,000 worth of art treasures are in the building."
It would be nearly a year before the corner building was leased. On February 6, 1915, the Record & Guide reported that Revillon Frères had leased "the new six-story building" for 21 years. Revillon Brothers established its fur company in 1723. Now known as Revillon Frères, it was a leading retailer and manufacturer of luxury furs and accessories.
The New York Times, September 26, 1915 (copyright expired)
Both firms sublet space in their buildings, with most of the tenants being in the arts or decorating business. One notable exception was the Sonora Phonograph Corp. On July 25, 1915, the New York Herald reported that the firm "has leased salons at 668 Fifth Avenue adjoining the Vanderbilt residence, for demonstration rooms."
A Sonora Phonograph ad in December 1915 depicted the entire blockfront. The Pharmaceutical Era (copyright expired)
Also in 668 Fifth Avenue at the time was the Kent-Shmayon Galleries. The firm dealt in imported art and antiques, like Persian faience, rare manuscripts, Chinese porcelains, and Spanish, Italian and English antique furniture. Not long after its opening, it was the target of two slick thieves. On December 1, 1914, Joseph Hess and "another well-dressed man" entered the Kent-Shmayon Galleries "to look at some antiques," reported The New York Times, "and carried off jewelry valued at $7,900." (The heist would equal $261,000 today.) Hess, who was known to police as "the man with many aliases," was captured in Indianapolis on January 6, 1915.
Unfortunately, the war in Europe disrupted the firm's ability to import goods. On February 27, 1915, The Evening Post reported, "The Kent-Shmavon Galleries, 668 Fifth Avenue, have been forced by present conditions, due to the war, to close their galleries." A six-day liquidation auction began on March 1. The article said, "Altogether there are nearly fourteen hundred items now on exhibition."
via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
On March 2, the New-York Tribune reported on the first day's sales, saying, "Lovers and students of Eastern art filled the large ground floor salon." The article noted, "Lillian Russell was an interested and liberal buyer. She obtained, among other things, an Asia Minor silk rug." Other items that were sold that day was a "Persian carpet of Kerman weave" which sold for the equivalent of $19,500 today, and a "Persian Goerevan carpet with a camel's hair field" that brought nearly the same amount.
The Bourgeois Galleries replaced the Kent-Shmavon Galleries
in the building. The art dealers catered to wealthy patrons. Somewhat ironically, one of its first exhibitions was the private collection of Albert Eugene Gallatin's paintings and graphic art. Certainly many of the artworks had hung in his family's mansion on the site.
The gallery's firm reputation did not require anything other than a dignified, understated ad. The Arts, August-September 1921 (copyright expired)
Other tenants in the buildings in the 1920s, along with Hoffstatter and Revillon Frères, of course, were Stair & Andrew and the Kingore art gallery. Stair & Company, which occupied space on the fourth floor of 668 Fifth Avenue, specialized in old English furniture, paneling, tapestries, and antique mantelpieces.
By the mid-1920s, John D. Rockefeller Jr. owned 668 and 670 Fifth Avenue. On February 16, 1928, The New York Times reported that he was erecting a six-story building on the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 54th Street and that it "will be occupied under lease by Revillon Frères, furriers." The firm was replaced by Raymond & Whitcomb, Inc., which made "extensive alterations," according to The New York Times on June 6, 1929.
Raymond & Whitcomb, Inc. was a travel agency. In 1934, the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania loaned the firm eight items from its collection of Central American relics to display. It did not end well. Three items, a gold sacrificial cup, two Zapotec funerary urns, and a solid gold breastplate, were displayed in the show window. On June 5, The New York Times reported, "A stone hurled through the show window of Raymond-Whitcomb, Inc...at some time early yesterday morning, enabled a thief to obtain a rare Mayan relic worth $5,000." The stolen relic was the sacrificial gold cup. The stone that smashed the window also broke one of the urns.
from the collection of the New York Public Library
In October 1938, John D. Rockefeller Jr. filed plans to replace the buildings with "a new nine-story office building," as reported by The New York Times. Something derailed those plans, however. Two years later, Theodore Hoffstatter & Co. moved to its own newly built structure at 9 East 56th Street. Lanz Inc., took over the lease of 668 Fifth Avenue for its clothing store.
In June 1945, Doubleday, Doran, Inc. opened a bookstore in the basement, first and second floors of 670 Fifth Avenue. The following year, Russell Stover Candies took over the first and second floors next door.
The Doubleday book shop was the scene of a raid on August 8, 1946. Responding to a complaint by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, four plainclothes detectives entered and "removed 130 copies of Edmund Wilson's book of short stores, 'Memoirs of Hecate County,'" as reported by The New York Times. Blotter entries at the West 54th and East 51st Street station houses called the books, "salacious and lascivious literature." While the Society called the book "obscene," The New York Times said, "virtually all reviewers regarded it as a serious literary work."
Just before demolition in 1955, the Russell Stover signage covered the 2nd-floor show window of No. 688 and the iron cresting was gone. Supreme Court evidence photo May 1957.
In 1955, Russell Stover Candies announced it would be moving into the Gotham Hotel. The move was no doubt prompted by the sale of 668 and 670 Fifth Avenue for redevelopment. On February 13, The New York Times reported that a 36-story office building designed by Carson & Lundin would replace the buildings from 52nd to 53rd Street.
Demolition of the structures began in April. The resultant building lasted until 2013 when it was demolished for the steel-and-glass 666 Fifth Avenue.
rendering by Zaha Hadid.
many thanks to reader Doug Wheeler for prompting this post
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