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. Hardenbergh'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 Bergdorf Goodman Building is one rare structure deserving of that description.

Buchman & Kahn's 1929 Art Deco 261 Fifth Avenue

The glory days of brick and brownstone mansions along Fifth Avenue below 34th Street were gone by the mid-1920's.  A decade earlier loft and store buildings had begun replacing the venerable homes.  In 1928 the three four- and five-story buildings at Nos. 259 through 263 Fifth Avenue and 2 through 6 East 29th Street were prepared for demolition.

Scaffolding girds the old buildings and debris chutes pierce the lower windows of No. 263 as demolition gets underway in 1928.  photo by Buchman & Kahn, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The properties had been amassed by the newly-formed Fifth Avenue & 29th Street Corp.  The design of the syndicate's 26-story multi-purpose building (it would house showrooms, offices and manufacturing space) was given to the architectural firm of Buchman & Kahn.  There is no doubt that Ely Jacques Kahn took the reins on what would be one of the last of the firm's commissions.  (He would take over the practice in 1930, renaming it Ely Jacques Kahn Architects.)   As Anthony W. Robins put it in his 2017 book New York Art Deco, "The wonderfully fine-grained detail, the sensibility of decorative objets-d'art, could only be Kahn--no other architect produced anything like this."

As construction was well underway in the fall, Kahn was among the speakers at a ceremony at the job site on October 17, 1928.  The New York Times explained "Eighteen mechanics who have shown outstanding ability during the construction of the twenty-five-story [sic] story office building at 261 Fifth Avenue...will receive certificates and gold buttons."  Almost every facet of the construction process was represented among the recipients--a bricklayer, carpenter, plumber, ornamental iron worker, roofer, etc.

The newly-completed building was featured on an advertising piece for the Youngstown Buckeye Company & Youngstown Pipe.  from the collection of the Youngstown Historical Center of Industry and Labor

Construction was completed in 1929.  Kahn had produced a jazz age Art Deco structure unlike any other in the city.  Using geometric forms and bands executed in vivid multi-colored terra cotta, the architect harkened to motifs similar to those used by Frank Lloyd Wright.  

Kahn's original Fifth Avenue entrance which included an inverted stairstep design and Art Deco panels...

was replaced during a renovation with a grill which strived to pay respect to Kahn's design.  Top photo by Sigurd Fischer from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York, Bottom photo by Beyond My Ken

The ground floor tenant was the newly-formed Broadway National Bank and Trust Company, which opened for business on June 25, 1929.  Its Art Deco interiors were designed by Louis H. Friedland.  The New York Times reported "Marble columns and pilasters in black and gold are features of the decoration of the main banking room, with an ornamental decorative ceiling."  The bank had spared little expense on materials.  "The grill is of marble, black and gold, with flush French walnut marquetry paneling, surrounded by a screen of gun-metal finish bronze with metal trimmings," said the article.  "The vestibule, on the Fifth Avenue part, is of gray Formosa marble on French walnut marquetry panels covered with metal and bronze trimmings and cornice."  

The 18-foot high walls of the chairman's office were paneled in French walnut mahogany and the ceiling had decorative plasterwork.  Marble pilasters decorated the board room.

As the showrooms and offices filled with businesses typical of the district--carpeting and textile firms, for instance--one stood out.  Amtorg Trading Corporation was among the first to move in.  It was the only organization empowered by the Soviet Union to purchase American goods and to sign contracts for importation of Soviet products.  It was, as well, tasked with providing American firms information about trade opportunities in the U.S.S.R. and to inform the Soviets about American technical advances and information on American firms.

But there was more going on in the offices of Amtorg Trading Corporation.  On July 28, 1930 the Queens newspaper, the Daily Star, reported "Federal officials charge that the Amtorg Trading Corporation, which has been under the searching scrutiny of the House of Representatives committee investigating Communistic affairs, is implicated in [an] alleged smuggling plot."

Two men, Jacob Kreitz and a man named Winfield, "who is said to be a Soviet agent," had been arrested for smuggling Russian-made watches into the country.  U. S. Attorney Charles H. Tuttle declared "he has ascertained that Wolode Asaturov, described as a controller in the Amtorg company, played a role in the alleged illegal importation."

Colorful terra cotta ornamentation adorns the upper floors.

In Kreitz's pocket when he was arrested was "a little black book" which contained the names and addresses of 25 Soviet agents in the United States.  Sewn into the underside of his coat lapel was a four-inch ribbon which read "The bearer of this badge is a trustworthy servant of the Soviet and may be trusted with any secrets."

Despite Federal suspicions of espionage, Amtorg Trading Corporation continued to operate from No. 261 Fifth Avenue.  On April 24, 1931 The Daily Record reported "Russia Soviet Republic has placed orders with Rochester manufacturing firms amount to $600,000 so far this year...All contracts for Russia are placed through the Amtorg Trading Corporation, 261 Fifth Avenue, New York.  Many more large contracts for Russia are expected to be placed here."

Apparently not every worker in the office was entirely content.  On April 28, 1932 45-year old clerk, Pauline Lodge, threw herself from a window in Amtorg Trading Corporation's 18th floor offices.  Police found a note in her pocket which read:

To the city:  Bury me like a dog, but don't disturb the people where I stay.  Pauline Lodge.

When the manager of the office was asked about the tragedy, he simply said she was "disgusted with life."

Two views of the lobby.  photos by Sigurd Fischer from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

With the repeal of Prohibition, Amtorg Trading Corporation seized the opportunity.  On November 3, 1934 The Advocate reported that the Soviet Russia Vodka Wine & Liquor Corp. had opened in No. 261 Fifth Avenue with a license to sell wholesale liquor.

In the meantime, the more expected tenants in the building included the Native Laces & Textiles, Inc., Pacific Mills, and Botany Worsted Mills throughout the 1940's.  A much different wartime tenant was the Vulcanized Rubber & Plastics Company.  

While textile and home goods firms continued to call No. 261 Fifth Avenue home at mid-century, the tenant list broadened.  In 1951 Screen Stories magazine was published here, followed by Modern Screen and Filmland magazines by 1958.  At the same time the Decorative Cabinet Corp. was leasing space.

Throughout the next decades firms like Jolo Plastics Corporation, makers of mattress and pillow coverings, counter coverings and protective items; Cameo Curtains, Inc.; and Ex-Cell Home Fashions were in the building.  In 1988 Ex-Cell introduced its Skirt-It product, what Taconic Newspapers called "an innovative sink skirt" that "transforms an ordinary sink into a spacious decorative vanity, hiding unsightly plumbing and pipes and adding fashion flair, in a matter of minutes."  (The ambitious home decorator could purchase towels, shower curtains and window curtains to match.)

No. 261 Fifth Avenue became part of the massive property holdings of Harry B. Helmsley.   In 1982 he admitted to a reporter "I'm cheap," and as evidence pointed out that he changed the name of the New York Central Building at No. 230 Park Avenue to the New York General Building so he would have to change only two letters on the facade.  (It was later renamed the Helmsley Building.)

It was perhaps this notorious parsimony that resulted in No. 261 Fifth Avenue's being little altered.  Upon his death in 1997 it passed to his widow, Leona M. Helmsley.  It was purchased by Investment Properties Associates the following year, which resold it prior to 2000.

The lobby as it appears in 2020.

In 2008 a restoration and renovation was begun by Israel Berger Architects, PC.  Included was the amazingly-intact lobby, with its original lighting and other fixtures.  The gold leaf of the lobby ceiling was carefully redone by YVStudio.  The six-year project brought Ely Jacques Kahn's striking Art Deco design back to its 1929 appearance.  

The re-fabricated entrance more closely resembles the 1929 original.

photographs by the author

The 1926 Scientific American Bldg -- Nos. 24-26 W. 40th Street

photo by Alice Lum

In the 1840s when Rufus M. Porter was not painting portraits and murals or inventing he was writing.  Between 1825 and 1826 he published four editions of A Select Collection of Valuable and Curious Arts, and Interesting Experiments.  At the same time he painted murals in homes and inns throughout New England—by 1845 he would have decorated around 160 rooms.   In his spare time he worked on inventions.  Among his inventions were clocks, churns, an apparatus for measuring distances, a cheese press, a revolving rifle and a camera (he could make silhouette portraits within 15 minutes).

In 1841 he published the New York Mechanic which dealt with new inventions and served as a platform for publicizing his own creations like the rotary plow.  The periodical stopped printing in 1843, but two years later Porter established a new weekly called the Scientific American.  Like his former paper, it focused on new inventions and patents, provided illustrations and updated readers on “the most interesting news of passing events, general notices of progress of Mechanical and other Scientific Improvements; American and Foreign.”

Ten months after printing the first issue in 1845, Porter sold the weekly to Orson Desaix Munn and Alfred Ely Beach.   The partners formed Munn & Co., Inc., publishers, and established The Scientific American in the New York Sun Building at Fulton and Nassau Streets.  Their first issue from here was printed on July 23, 1846.

In 1859 the magazine relocated to larger space at No. 37 Park Row, in the midst of the publishing district.  It would be the first of several moves.  When that building was destroyed by fire in 1882, it moved to No. 261 Broadway and later slightly uptown to No. 361 Broadway.   When the soaring Woolworth Building was completed in 1915, Scientific American was one of its first tenants.

From the Woolworth Building the magazine reported on war technology in 1916 (copyright expired)

Nine years later Munn & Co. would be looking to relocate once again.

This time the successful magazine would build its own headquarters.  By now the block of 40^th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, only two decades ago lined with comfortable brownstones of the 1880s, was filling with modern office buildings.   In 1924 Munn & Co. commissioned Ely Jacques Kahn, of Buchman & Kahn, to design its new home facing Bryant Park behind the New York Public Library.

Throughout his career Kahn would produce mainly office buildings and he intrepidly moved from Beaux Arts into the modern Art Deco, Modernist and Cubism influences.  But for the Scientific American Building at Nos. 24-26 West 40^th Street, he drew upon the French Renaissance.  Working in brick and terra cotta, he emphasized the verticality of the 16-story skyscraper with three 11-story side-by-side arches, each divided into three smaller arches, with pencil-thin colunettes drawing the eye upward.  Atop was a pyramidal roof, interrupted on three sides by French dormers with spiky finials.

A large sign offering office space hangs on the building in 1926 -- from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

On July 5, 1926 the building was completed and the Scientific American moved into the top five floors.  The New York Times made note that “The building is the first owned by The Scientific American in its eighty years of existence.”

With its new headquarters, the magazine did some revamping of itself.  On July 6 The Times reported “Orson D. Munn, editor and publisher, told of his plans for changes and improvements, including a new cover design, enlarging the editorial staff, contracting for articles by distinguished scientists, adding eight pages of text to each issue and increasing the number of illustrations.”  Noted scientists like Albert Einstein and Jonas Salk would contribute to the magazine.

Without a telephone, calculator or typewriter in sight, Scientific American workers enjoy their new office space in 1926 -- from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Scientific American was known for its cutting edge reporting—two decades before the radio it published articles on Marconi’s experimentation and two years before the Wright Brothers Kitty Hawk flight it published photographs of their airplane.  Shortly after moving into the new building it reported on a practical exhibition of television.  The demonstration emanated a moving image and the voice of the Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, from Washington, D.C. to New York via telephone lines.

Kahn's clean design for the lower levels and retail space is little changed today -- from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Along with the publishing firm, the patent attorneys, Munn & Co., that handled “trade-marks, designs and foreign patents,” moved in.  Not surprisingly, considering the name, it advertised “associated since 1846 with the Scientific American.”

Taking two floors in 1927 was the organization with the cumbersome name of the Association for the Establishment and Maintenance for the People in the City of New York, of Museums of the Peaceful Arts. Founded on February 6, 1914, its stated object was “To further education in science and industry.”  Here the association’s 2,000-volume library was housed along with modern innovations like telephone equipment in its efforts “to bring together a permanent collection of the inventions which have helped to develop industry and commerce.”

The work of the association had been interrupted by World War I, but now was in back in operation.  The complimentary interests of the magazine and the Association made the location ideal.

/Despite his sleek, modern designs for other office buildings, Kahn turned to French Renaissance for the Scientific American commmission -- photo by Alice Lum

Until December 1928 the offices of The Miller Company were scattered throughout Manhattan—at No. 105 East 40^th, No. 68 Park Place and No. 546 Broadway.  In December of that year the manufacturer of lighting fixtures leased two full floors in the Scientific American Building, consolidating its operations into a single location.  In doing so, it took the last available floor space in the building.  Both The New York Times and Buildings and Building Management commented that the 16-story building “is now 100 percent rented.”

The years following the Great Depression and leading up to the United States entering World War II were harsh on The Scientific American.   In November 1943 the building was sold to investors for $425,000.  Included in the sale was a long-term lease on the ground floor, mezzanine and basement to General Ribbon Mills.

Five years later Dennis Flanagan, Donald Miller and Gerald Piel purchased Scientific American from Munn & Company, founding Scientific American, Inc.

photo by Alice Lum

Little has changed in Ely Kahn’s stately structure designed for a scientific magazine.  Even the lower levels have been subjected to little modernization.  The Scientific American Building stands out in a row of exceptional structures erected along the block in the first half of the last century.