H. I. Feldman's 1954 4 East 89th Street

 

In 1929, the five-story, 94-foot-wide mansion owned by Edward Thaw (the half-brother of millionaire Harry K. Thaw who murdered Stanford White) was demolished.  The plot sat empty for nearly two decades before the architectural firm of Eggers & Higgins filed plans in 1946 for a 13-story-and-penthouse apartment building at 4-10 East 89th Street for the Fifth Avenue & 89th Street Corp.  The project stalled, however, and four years later the plot was sold to the Noarpark Realty Corp., which hired architect H. I. Feldman to tweak the plans.  He reworked them again in 1953 when the vacant property was sold to the Retor Building Corp.  

What were most likely subtle refinements to the Eggers & Higgins design reflected the move from Art Moderne to mid-century Modern taste.  The rounded forms of the former style seen in balcony railings, for instance, were now rigidly geometric.  Feldman designed two mirror-image sections faced in beige brick atop a one-story base.  The recessed section between the two contained concrete balconies flanked by chamfered casement windows.  The setbacks at the topmost floors provided balconies at the sides and to the penthouse level.  Additional balconies faced west and south, looking over Frank Lloyd Wright's masterful Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum towards Central Park.

The balconies at the side and rear can be seen in this photo of the Guggenheim under construction in 1957.  photo by Gottscho-Schleisner, Inc. from the collection of the Library of Congress.

The 80 apartments became home to professionals like attorney Meyer Dvorkin and his educator wife Etta Weissberg.  Etta had graduated from Hunter College and the Teachers Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.  She helped organize the High School of Music and Art where she taught foreign languages before becoming its dean.  She retired in 1962.

What no resident could have imagined--an 11-story addition to the Guggenheim Museum--was announced in 1985.  On February 19, The New York Times explained, "The addition, which would cost $12 million, would rise as a slab behind the northern half of the present museum building, with a street entrance on East 89th Street."  Filling the gap between the Wright's unique structure and 4 East 89th Street, the proposed annex would nestle up to the apartment building leaving a gap of one or two inches.

Architectural critic and author Paul Goldberger had praised the plan in The New York Times four days earlier.  He said it would "rise as a backdrop behind the main building" and "hide from sight the awkward side elevation of the apartment house at 4 East 89th Street."  Others lamented that futzing with Frank Lloyd Wright's design was like "improving" a Mondrian within the collection.

Jack Piccolo's terrace overlooked the museum.  On June 25, 1992, Newsday journalist Patricia Volk remarked, "He used to stand out on his terrace and look clear over the museum into the park.  He used to sip a glass of wine, watching the sun sink behind the reservoir.  Now he stares at a wall."

The new structure nestled up to 4 East 89th Street.

Piccolo told Volk he did not think the annex would ever actually be built.  "I always thought there'd be a miracle, that someone would come to their senses and say, 'This is crazy.'"  But it was built and he and 10 other families lost their views.  "Now my terrace butts right up against the new addition," he said.  "I go out there, put my hand out, and touch it."

Joan Walton Sheanshang was a resident when construction of the Guggenheim annex began.  The 46-year-old boarded Pan Am Flight 103 in London on December 21, 1988.  Tragically, she would never make it home.  Around 7:00, shortly after takeoff, the aircraft was destroyed by a bomb over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew. 

Psychiatrist Robert Howard Willis lived in Tenafly, New Jersey and practiced from an office on the ground floor of 4 East 89th Street.  During sessions in 1989, a patient innocently mentioned her husband's banking dealings, including "a possible deal in which Shearson, Loeb Rhodes would invest $1 billion in the BankAmerica if Sanford I. Weill...became head of BankAmerica," according to The New York Times.  Willis acted on the unintentional tip and turned a profit in BankAmerica Corporation stock.

His good luck was short lived however.  On July 26, 1989, he was charged with using inside information to make the deal.  "He was charged with 23 counts of securities fraud and 23 counts of mail fraud," reported The Times.

At some point the windows of 4 East 89th Street were replaced.  The new examples sympathetically followed H. I. Feldman's original tripartite design.  Other than that and the Guggenheim Museum's annex that blocked off the building's western views, little has outwardly changed to the 70-year-old building.

many thanks to reader Lowell Cochrane for requesting this post

photographs by the author

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