Emery Roth & Sons' 1940 875 Fifth Avenue

 

In 1939, a syndicate called the 877 Fifth Avenue Corporation was formed for the purpose of erecting a modern apartment house at the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 69th Street.  In April, it acquired the corner mansion at 877 Fifth Avenue (home to the Ogden L. Mills family for years) and the adjacent residence at 2-4 East 69th Street.  In August 8, The New York Times reported that the group had taken title to 875 Fifth Avenue, "a six-story private dwelling," and within days 876 Fifth Avenue was acquired, completing the parcel.

On July 10, 1939, the Mills mansion was being prepared for demolition.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

On August 28, 1939, Emery Roth & Sons filed plans for "an eighteen-story and penthouse apartment building costing about $800,000," as reported by The New York Times.  The construction cost would translate to just over $18 million in 2025.   

The architects' stark Art Moderne design featured a three-story stone base and 15 stories of beige brick.  Bold, double-height reeding flanked the recessed entrance.  Windows wrapped the corners of the projecting eastern section and those of the corner terraces.  Terrace-creating setbacks began at the 15th floor.

The architects' rendering was released in 1939.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York 

Construction had barely begun when the first apartment was leased.  On November 5, 1939, The New York Times reported that architect Philip L. Goodwin had leased a nine-room penthouse "with terraces on two levels fronting the Fifth Avenue side of the building."  Goodwin had good reason to move quickly.  "He is having the apartment constructed from his own plans," said the article.  Following Goodwin's lead was builder and real estate operator Louis Adler.  On December 2, The New York Sun reported that he had leased "a large terrace apartment," adding, "The apartment leased has been especially planned to meet Mr. Adler's needs."

When the building opened on August 15, 1940, more than 70 apartments had been rented, according to The New York Sun.  Among the initial tenants were Louis Jaramillo Serra, "operator of sugar plantations in Colombia," according to The New York Times; Henry J. Lesser, president of the International Trading Corporation; Benjamin H. Roth, head of the brokerage firm of B. H. Roth & Co.; and Joseph H. Tooker, president of the Tooker Lithograph Company, and his wife, the former Dora Mather.

The Tookers' brought deep American pedigrees to the building.  Dora was a descendant of Cotton Mather and Increase Mather, and Joseph's ancestors arrived from England in 1707.  A member of the Sons of the American Revolution, among Joseph's ancestors was John Baily, a friend of George Washington.

A colorful resident was singer and motion picture actress Arline Judge.  Born in Connecticut in 1912, she started out in Broadway musicals before meeting film director Wesley Ruggles on a train.  The change meeting resulted in Arline's quickly appearing in six films in 1931.  Ruggles not only set her on a career path in movies, he became the first of her seven husbands.  She divorced him in 1937 and married sportsman and advertising executive Dan Topping that year.  

This 1941 publicity photo was taken while Arline Judge lived at 875 Fifth Avenue.

The couple's marriage was brief.  They divorced in 1940 and Arline moved into 875 Fifth Avenue.  (She would marry Henry J. Topping, Dan's brother, in 1947, two husbands later.)  Arline married James Ramage Addams in 1942 and a two-day auction of her furnishings was held in August.  The New York Times reported:

Some of the furnishings of one of Miss Judge's bedrooms, which brought $289, included two early American style four-post beds, a highboy in the same style, a dressing table and a chaise lounge.  Furnishings of other bedrooms, living room, dining room and other rooms also were sold.

Equally fascinating was model Puk Paaris Gevaert, estranged wife of multi-millionaire Dr. Joseph Cornelis Maria Gevaert, described by The New York Times as "a Belgian capitalist."  Born in 1901, he was president of the Gevaert Company of America, Inc. and from 1939 to 1940 was Belgian Commissioner General to the New York World's Fair.

Born in 1919, Puk Paaris was a former Miss Denmark.  The domestic relationship between her and Gevaert was decidedly rocky.  Sixteen days after the couple met in April 1941, they were married.  Six months later, Puk divorced him.  The New York Sun reported, "she settled for $60,000 plus alimony of $500 a month for two years."  Three weeks later, on November 3, 1941, they remarried.  (Puk later admitted she did not offer to repay the $60,000 settlement.  "She spent it, she said," reported The Sun.)

Puk Paaris and Joseph C. M. Gevaert during an apparently rare non-confrontational moment.  (original source unknown)

The split and reconciliation set a pattern.  On January 26, 1945, The New York Times reported, "Mrs. Gevaert...has been separated from her husband twenty-nine times, six of them legal."  Three days before that article, Puk had appeared in State Supreme Court to ask for $50,000 a year alimony and $25,000 counsel fees.  (The annual alimony would equal $871,000 today.)  The New York Sun reported, "They lived on a scale of from $5,000 to $6,000 a month, [and] she testified in support of her claim that it would be unthinkable for her to exist on less than $50,000 a year alimony."

The New York Times reported on January 26, 1945 that Puk Paaris Gevaert won "her suit for separation against her wealthy husband."  Although the terms were not released, Puk said she was "very happy, very happy," asserting that she was now "completely vindicated," and that, "The public now knows what there was to the malicious charges made against me."

Like Arline Judge, Puk Paaris Geraert sold the "modernistic furniture and decorations" of her 875 Fifth Avenue apartment at auction.  Included, reported The New York Times on September 7, 1945, was a "specially built upholstered circular bed."

Less controversial but equally celebrated was stage and screen actor Victor Fred Moore, who moved into an apartment with his second wife, the former Shirley Paige, after their marriage in 1942.  (Moore's first wife, Emma Littlefield, died in 1934.)   Born in 1876, he first appeared on Broadway in 1896.  By now, he was well known for his character roles in motion pictures.

On May 14, 1946, The New York Sun began an article saying, "Victor Moore, famous for his stage portrayals of amiably bewildered men facing baffling situations, appeared in the Mid-Manhattan Court today with his diminutive Pomeranian, Bambi, in a real-life skit."  The actor had been given a summons by a policeman who "said Moore let Bambi frisk about on the East Drive of Central Park near 71st street without a muzzle."

Outside the courtroom, Moore quipped to reporters that the situation reminded him of a sketch he "reenacted in a Ziegfeld Follies movie, called 'Pay the $2.'"  After hearing the case, Magistrate Harry G. Andrews declared, "Two dollars."

"'Pay the $2,' Moore murmured as if deep puzzling memories of the past while he peeled off two $1 bills," recounted The Sun.

Victor Moore, from the collection of the New York Public Library

The following month, Victor Moore's name was in the news for a more serious reason.  On June 3, he and his son, Robert Emmett Moore (who, incidentally, survived several months in a German prisoner of war camp during World War II), set off on a fishing trip on the Long Island Sound on Moore's cabin cruiser.  Fumes that had built up below deck suddenly exploded.  "Most of the boat's deck house was demolished in the blast," reported The New York Times.

Both men suffered second degree burns and cuts, but were released after an hour at the Eastern Long Island Hospital.  Moore told reporters, "There is a possibility the boat can be repaired, but I am not going to do it.  For the last thirty years I have had a fishing cruiser, but I don't think I will ever have another."

Also living here at the time was painter and architectural sculptor Edith Marion Day Magonigle, the widow of architect, author and artist Harold Van Bueren Magonigle, who died in 1935.  (Among Magonigle's designs were the United States Embassy and Consulate in Toyko, the Soldiers' Memorial in Naugatuck, Connecticut, and the Arsenal Technical School in Indianapolis).  Born in 1911, Edith had often decorated the interiors of her husband's buildings with murals.  Among those collaborations were her murals for his Kansas City Liberty Memorial, described by The New York Times as containing, "one of the largest friezes ever undertaken by a woman."

In cooperation with groups like the Salmagundi Club during World War I, she chaired a committee of artists who painted "designation targets" as instructional tools for Army recruits.  "The 'targets' were of particular value in training city men to fix objectives with respect to their surroundings, so they could orient themselves if lost," explained the newspaper.

Edith Day Magonigle at work on a "destination target" mural, Asia.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

In 1920 through 1922, Edith was president of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors.  Edith Day Magonigle died at the age of 72 in her apartment here on August 8, 1949.

In 1951, Isaac Liberman, president of Arnold, Constable & Co., his wife, Bertha, and their daughter, Sally, moved into an 18th floor apartment in 875 Fifth Avenue.  Sally Liberman had graduated from Bennington College a year earlier.  Brooks Clark quotes Jonathan Low, Sally's cousin, in Sally's Genius as he recalled holiday dinners with the Libermans:

[They] were festive affairs, with lots of relatives we barely knew and everyone seated around a huge dining room table groaning with fruit, breads, pastries, centerpieces, silver, and crystal.  The walls were hung with expensive old brocades and tapestries.  Dinner was served by servants in formal uniforms overseen by Karl, the Swedish chauffeur-butler.  Their apartment at 875 Fifth Avenue overlooked Central Park and the view, high above the treetops, was always beautiful.

Sally Liberman, who would marry Robert Smith, would go on to be a leader in special education.  She would found the Lab School for children with learning difficulties in 1967 and a professor in the School of Education and Head of the Graduate Program in Special Education at the American University.

Among the Libermans' neighbors in the building were Robert and Zoe Armstrong, who had a five-room apartment on the 11th floor.  As Zoe hurried to dress for an occasion on the evening of August 3, 1953, she was unable to find certain pieces of jewelry.  Running late, she put off a thorough search until the next morning, when she discovered that 14 pieces, including, "diamonds, clips, earrings and watches," as described by The New York Times, were missing.  They were valued by her at $32,500--about $381,000 today.  "Other jewelry worth between $75,000 and $100,000 was found intact in its place," said the article.  Only the maid had been in the apartment that day and police said there were no marks of forced entry.

Two days later, the Armstrongs boarded the French liner Ile de France for Europe.  Zoe was relatively cavalier about the burglary.  "I guess we'll have to do without any baubles," she told a reporter.

On October 16, authorities announced that a "ring of jewel thieves that looted East Side apartments of more than $1,000,000 in jewels and furs" had been captured.  The group included four women who posed as domestics and obtained access to the apartments with keys entrusted to the "maids."  Of Zoe Armstrong's stolen items, one piece, a ruby and diamond platinum wrist watch, was discovered in a pawn shop.

Financier Archibald Moore Montgomery and his wife, the former Eleanor Scully were highly visible residents.  The couple was married on September 21, 1942.  The elegant and well-styled Eleanor was fashion editor of Vogue magazine.  The couple's country home was in Water Mill, Southampton, Long Island.

Archibald Montgomery died in 1965.  Eleanor remained in their apartment, never loosing her patrician bearing nor her independence as she aged.  Although she used a cane after recovering from a broken hip, on April 16, 1982, the "wealthy 73-year-old socialite," as described by the Daily News, left her apartment and took a cab to a garage on 71st Street and First Avenue where she kept her automobile.  "She drove out of the garage a few minutes later," reported the article.

Eleanor Scully Montgomery, Daily News, April 27, 1982

Eleanor was on the way to have dinner at the Meadow Club in Southampton with an old friend, Mrs. R. Townley Paton.  But she never showed up.  Mrs. Paton telephoned Eleanor's Southampton place, but the caretaker said she had not arrived.  What resulted was what The New York Times described as a "13-state missing-person alarm."  

More than a week later, the former Vogue editor was still unaccounted for.  Finally, nine days after her disappearance, an employee of Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn noticed the news coverage of the search.  He "called Mrs. Paton to report that Mrs. Montgomery had been in the hospital all along," reported The Times on April 27.  Eleanor had been involved in an accident.  According to her, she "had asked that Mrs. Paton be notified, but that this was apparently overlooked."  In reporting that she had been found, the Daily News noted that she, "is listed in 'The Blue Book of the Hamptons,' a Long Island social register," and said, "She had lived in Connecticut, Colorado, France and India and was the author of a privately published book about Indian mysticism, 'Tantra Today.'"

At the time of Eleanor Montgomery's mishap, the Libermans still occupied their 18th floor apartment.  Although Arnold, Constable & Co. closed its main location at Fifth Avenue and 40th Street in 1975, Isaac Liberman continued to be active.  He became president of the John Forsythe Company and the Liberman Brothers Holding Corporation, as well as president of the Bertha and Isaac Liberman Foundation.  Astoundingly, he was still working when he died in the apartment at the age of 97 on August 3, 1983.  Bertha Bayer Liberman survived him by six years, dying on October 20, 1989 at the age of 93.

More than eight decades after the first tenant moved in, 875 Fifth Avenue maintains its place as one of Manhattan's most prestigious addresses.  A three-bedroom apartment on the ninth floor was recently placed on the market at $66.7 million.

photographs by the author

Emery Roth & Sons's 1938 2 Sutton Place South

 

image via streeteasy.com

By the first years of the Great Depression, the Sutton Place neighborhood--described by The New York Times in 1920 as "a slum"--was rapidly transforming into one of Manhattan's most fashionable enclaves.  In 1937, the old houses at the southwest corner of Sutton Place South and 57th Street were demolished and Emery Roth & Sons was commissioned to replace them with a high-end apartment building.  

Notable for designing apartment buildings, Emery Roth & Sons drew from the Italian Renaissance for 2 Sutton Square South.  The two-story base was clad in mauve-veined stone, its entrance discreetly tucked within a recessed, corner porte-cochère behind a stone balustrade.  Here well-heeled residents could alight from their vehicles in privacy.  In contrast to the relatively unadorned upper floors, the porte-cochère featured double-height Corinthian pilasters and spandrels of carved Renaissance decorations.

The is entrance hidden within the porte-cochère .  image via streeteasy.com

The brick-faced upper floors were relatively unadorned, other than stone quoins and a course of inset geometric designs between the third and fourth floors.  The triptych windows were as much an architectural element as mere fenestration.

Among the early residents were newly-married William Saroyan and his bride Carol Grace, who leased one of the penthouses.  Still in the U.S. Army, the playwright and novelist was stationed in the Astoria Army Post in Queens, assigned to the Army's film unit.  According to Lawrence Lee and Barry Gifford in their 1951 Saroyan, A Biography, Saroyan was not cut out for military life.  "What is certain is that, by the late summer of 1943, Saroyan's obstinate attitude had gotten him into serious trouble with the Army."

William Saroyan in 1940.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

One morning a slipped disc prevented the writer from commuting to the Queens post.   He called his sergeant and explained the situation.  The Army was not so understanding a few months later.  Saroyan wrote,

A month later, I couldn't get out of bed again, so again I phoned, and I believed the situation was the same as last time, but around eleven two military police, two medical corps sergeants, and  two privates all came up to the penthouse at 2 Sutton Place South.

He was taken to a military hospital for observation as to determine "whether he should be discharged as mentally unfit," according to his biographers.

Another playwright in the building was Rose Franken and her writer husband William Brown Meloney.  The couple married in 1937.  Among the works Franken completed while living here were the 1937 Of Great Riches; Strange Victory and Claudia: the Story of a Marriage, both published in 1939; and the 1940 When Doctors Disagree.

In 1946, producer Walter Wanger was searching for an apartment in the Sutton Place neighborhood as a setting for his film Smash-Up, starring Susan Hayward and Eddie Albert.  In his Keep 'Em in the East--Kazan, Kubrick, and the Postwar New York Film Renaissance, Richard Koszarski writes, "Wanger was even 'stymied for a while by the reluctance of Sutton Place property owners to cooperate in the interests of cinematic art' until one friendly tenant, the playwright Rose Franken, allowed access to her apartment at 2 Sutton Place South."

The most celebrated tenant to date was actress Marilyn Monroe, who moved in following her divorce from baseball great Joe DiMaggio in 1955.  Barbara Leaming, in Marilyn Monroe: A Biography, writes, "On the morning of February 25, 1956, a limousine pulled away from 2 Sutton Place South.  Marilyn, a dark mink coat slung over her shoulders, was on her way to the airport."  Monroe was headed to the West to shoot Bus Stop.  Simultaneously, playwright Arthur Miller was flying to Nevada where he would establish a six-week residency in order to file for divorce from Mary Slattery Miller.

Marilyn Monroe gets into a waiting car at 2 Sutton Place South.  image via themarilynmonroecollection.com

Although several accounts have Monroe and Miller being married in her 2 Sutton Place South apartment, the couple was wed at the Westchester County Courthouse in White Plains, New York on June 29, 1956.  They took an apartment around the corner at 444 East 57th Street.

A much different sort of entertainer at 2 Sutton Place South was Mabel Garrison.  Described by the Daily News as "one of the leading American coloratura sopranos of her time," she had joined the Metropolitan Opera Company in 1914.

The affluence of the residents' was reflected in an incident involving Harry P. Barrand and his wife, the former Helen Stukenborg in 1961.  Barrand was vice president of Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company (where he first met Helen).  The couple was married in Grace Church on April 3, 1948.

Harry and Helen returned from Europe on September 8, 1961.  Cab driver Anthony Soldano picked them up at the pier.  When the Barrands unpacked, they realized that a bag containing $50,000 in jewelry (closer to $490,000 by 2024 conversion) was missing.  The 38-year-old cabbie was tracked down in Florida and arrested on October 21.

Living in a 10-room penthouse apartment in 1963 were Carl J. Schmid and his wife.  Schmid was the owner of Julius Schmid Inc., a pharmaceutical firm.  When the maid answered the door at 1:30 on the afternoon of May 2, 24-year-old David McNeil and 16-year-old Wendell Shanks asked to see Mrs. Schmid.  The Daily News reported, "Mrs. Schmid was at the luncheon table when they were ushered in.  She was immediately suspicious."

"Are you Mrs. Schmid?" asked McNeil (who had recently been released from federal prison after serving a term for impersonating an officer).

Mrs. Schmid replied, "I am, but I'm afraid I don't know you."

"Well, I know you.  This is a stickup," he answered.

Burglarizing the penthouse would be simple.  The Daily News reported, "The Schmids returned only on Wednesday from Europe.  Still in bags, unpacked and easy to cart off when the intruders showed up, were tens of thousands of dollars worth of furs and jewelry."

With unbelievable calm, Mrs. Schmid rose from the table and eased her way out of the room while the young men were distracted.  She later explained, "I nudged Doris.  We walked to the foyer and out the door.  They made no move to stop us.  We went down in the elevator to the ground floor, and the manager called police."

As luck would have it, an elevator maintenance man was working in the building, and he shut off power to the elevators.  When police arrived, they merely waited at the staircase doors to make their arrests.  With the crooks in custody, the mystery remained, according to the Daily News, "how did McNeil know about the Schmids and where they lived?"

By far the most socially prominent resident of 2 Sutton Place at the time was Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan, the former Duchess of Marlborough.  Her summer estate was in Southampton, Long Island.  The daughter of William Kissam and Alva Smith Vanderbilt, she was married to the ninth Duke of Marlborough in St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue on November 6, 1895.

Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan, the former Duchess of Marlborough.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

The Duke and Duchess divorced in 1921.  Later that year Consuelo married Lt. Colonel Louis Jacques Balsan of the French Air Army.  The couple built a villa at Èze on the French Riviera, and during World War II came to the United States where Consuelo Balsan regained her United States citizenship.  Balsan died in 1956 at the age of 88.

Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan lived here and in Southampton, supporting her many charities, until her death on December 6, 1964 at the age of 88.

Millionaire Michael Bloomberg was 34 years old before he turned his attention to romance.  He married Susan Elizabeth Barbara Brown on December 15, 1976.  His biographer, Joyce Purnick writes in Mike Bloomberg, Money, Power, Politics, "The newlyweds lived first at 2 Sutton Place South on the East Side, then moved to Armonk in suburban Westchester in the mid-1980s."

Emery Roth & Sons's dignified and discreet 2 Sutton Place South continues to house well-heeled New Yorkers, its outward appearance barely changed in nearly a century.

many thanks to reader Lowell Cochrane for suggesting this post.

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Emery Roth & Sons' 1950 40 Park Avenue

 

As the Great Depression waned, in 1938 Samuel Rudin's Northwest Realty Corporation hired the architectural firm of Emery Roth & Sons to design a 19-story-and-penthouse apartment building at 294-295 Central Park West.  Eleven years later, the two firms were working together again, this time on an 18-story-and-penthouse apartment building on the northwest corner of Park Avenue and 36th Street.

Completed in 1950, Emery Roth and Sons' Mid-Century-Modern design relied heavily on balconies for visual interest.  Above the 14th floor, the beige brick facade erupted into a series of setbacks and angles that provided outdoor space and stunning views. 

Among the initial residents were Dr. Charles G. McCormick and his wife, the former Selma Hansen.  Dr. McCormick was a member of the American Group Psychotherapy Association and in 1951 was slated to be editor of The International Journal of Group Psychotherapy.  (He withdrew his name, "finding himself unable to undertake the task," according to the periodical in October 1971.)

Selma McCormick was an instructor in the Dale Carnegie schools.  She died in the couple's apartment on March 26, 1961 at the age of 38. 

There was little scandal or intrigue among the white collar residents of 40 Park Avenue.  But that changed on October 28, 1970 when resident stockbroker Fred Hesse was indicted with seven others who "allegedly engineered a stock swindle that victimized brokerage houses and individuals across the country," as reported by The New York Times.  The newspaper noted, "It was the second such combined operation since the Joint Strike Force on Organized Crime was organized here in July, 1969."

More typical of the residents was Harry Prager, an insurance broker since 1927.  A widower, he was the past president and supreme master of the Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity, founded at New York University in 1913.

Mrs. William H. Stockton's name appeared in newspapers for her work with organizations like the World Council of Christian Education and the Haarlem Philharmonic Society.  When, for instance, a benefit card party for the Haarlem Philharmonic Society was held in the Waldorf-Astoria on February 14, 1973, The New York Times reported that tickets could be obtained from Mrs. Stockton here.

A somewhat colorful resident was Colonel James V. Demarest, who lived here with his wife, the former Mary Holland.  Born in 1890, the advertising man had served in both World Wars.  After serving overseas in World War I, he became president of the Advertising Men's Post of the New York State American Legion.  He was still president of the organization in 1952 when it was responsible for arranging the national convention in New York City.

With America's entry into World War II, Demarest was recalled to duty.  He served throughout the war in the Quartermaster Corps as executive officer of the New York purchasing office.  The New York Times noted, "when he retired from the Army in 1949, [he returned] to advertising and public relations."  Demarest died on March 7, 1976 at the age of 86.

In 1996, 40 Park Avenue was added to the Landmarks Preservation Commission's long list of properties considered for individual landmark designation (where it presumably still sits).  After 74 years, the Rudin organization still owns and manages the striking midcentury building.

photographs by the author

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Emery Roth's 295 Central Park West

image via rudin.com

Most of Central Park West's Victorian and Edwardian residential hotels and apartment houses were replaced by jazzy Art Deco towers in the 1920s.  One dowager holdout, however, the New Windsor Apartments at the southwest corner of 90th Street, survived through the Great Depression.  But that would soon change.

On November 17, 1938, The Sun reported that the Northwest Realty Corporation of which Samuel Rudin was president, "has purchased 294-295 Central Park West, the seven-story New Windsor Apartments...for a consideration of $115,000."

Rudin hired the architectural firm of Emery Roth & Sons to design the 19-story-and-penthouse replacement building.  The firm's streamlined Art Moderne design relied on form rather than ornamentation.  The shoulder-high granite water table that girded the base of the building rose up to form a monumental, two-story stepped entrance frame.  Emery Roth & Sons gently rounded the building's corners, the windows wrapping the sides.  A series of setbacks provided terrace space to the upper floors.

Emery Roth & Sons created the decorative bandcourse between the first and second floors in brick.  image via  landmarkwest.org

An advertisement in the New York Post on June 24, 1941 promised the "20-Story Apartment Masterpiece" would be ready for occupancy on August 1.  Compared to some of the pre-Depression buildings along the park, the size of the apartments were modest--ranging from "1-1/2 to 5 rooms" with either one or two baths.  The management's brochure stressed that 295 Central Park West "provides livability in small apartments to a remarkable degree."

The advertisement boasted of the "Norge hermetically sealed rollator refrigerators," while the brochure pointed out amenities like "modern steel casement windows, specially equipped with fresh air ventilators...A radio outlet in each living room...Venetian blinds in all rooms and bathrooms," and "Special soundproofed partitions between apartments assure the utmost quiet."

On August 9, the New York Post noted, "The special requirements of the professional man have been met in the scientific planning of the six doctors' suites in the new apartment building at 295 Central Park West."  Samuel Rudin announced that four of those suites had been leased to physicians who also took apartments in the building.  He also noted, "The building is now 84 per cent rented and 24 families have just moved in."

The relatively small apartments are seen in this typical floorplan.   from the collection of the New York Public Library

The building filled with professionals.  Among the initial residents were Mitchel and Eda Leventhal.  In January 1944, Mitchell partnered with Herman Lipin to form SOSY, for the "buying, selling, and generally dealing in luggage, hardware and other merchandise."  Three years later, the Times Record of Troy, New York reported that the couple and five other investors had purchased the Boardman Building in that city.

Resident Milton Davis had set up a business just before moving into 295 Central Park West.  In 1940, with World War II raging in Europe, he and Charles Davis (presumably a relative) formed the Coat Corporation of America.  Their only client was the U.S. Government for "the manufacture of Army clothing," according to The Daily Argus.

Five years later, despite their contracts with the Government having totaled about $12 million (equal to about $195 million in 2024), the Davises were in trouble.  On July 31, 1945, The Daily Argus reported that they "entered pleas of nolo contendere to an indictment charging a conspiracy to file a false statement with the renegotiation Board of the Army Quartermaster Corps."  Isaiah Matlack, chief of the New York Office of the War Frauds Division of the Department of Justice, had accused them of stating their 1942 profits amounted to $37,000, "whereas government investigation disclosed the profits totaled around $200,000."  The Davises were charged $30,000 in fines.

Residents of the two penthouse apartments enjoyed wrap-around terraces.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

Living here in 1949 was Herbert X. Blum.  He had formerly been president of the Self-Service Laundry Operators, a chain of coin-operated laundromats, and was now a vice-president.  Like Milton Davis, his shady operations landed him in court.  On July 12 that year, the Nassau Daily Review-Star reported that State Attorney General Nathaniel Goldstein had charged him and his partners with price-fixing and extortion.  They attempted "to drive the [lower priced independent operators] out of the 25 million-dollar-a-year industry by subsidizing price-war competition."  The attorney general estimated "the combination's price-pegging policy added four to five million dollars a year to the cash-and-carry laundry costs of New York housewives."

image via zumper.com

Davis and Blum were exceptions, of course, to the generally respectable residents of 295 Central Park West.  Living here in 1964 were Marjorie G. Levy and her daughter Jane.  On June 21, 1964, the Herald Statesman reported that Marjorie would serve as office manager on the staff of the Encampment for Citizenship at the Fieldston School in Riverdale."  The article noted, "Her daughter, Jane Levy, attended the encampment as a student in 1958.  Now a teacher in the New York City school system, Miss Levy will attend the New York University Human Relations Seminar in Puerto Rico this summer."

Another resident at the time was Peter Schwab, who was equally involved in social causes.  A former Peace Corps member, he was now an instructor at Fairleigh Dickinson University.  On November 4, 1965, the Riverdale Press reported that he would appear in a lecture series with Senator Abraham Ribicoff titled, "The Image of Man."  Schwab's topic was "The New Frontiers of Man."

The most celebrated resident at the time was Dr. Robert C. Weaver.  Born on December 29, 1907, he was described by The New York Times as a "portly, pedagogical man who wrote four books on urban affairs," Weaver was an important figure in the civil rights movement in the 1930s and '40s.  He repeatedly urged, " "Fight hard and legally, and don't blow your top."

In 1933 Weaver was appointed an aide to Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes under the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration.  "He later served as a special assistant in the housing division of the Works Progress Administration, the National Defense Advisory Commission, the War Production Board and the War Manpower Commission," according to The New York Times.  He was a member of what was loosely termed Roosevelt's "Black Cabinet."

Dr. Robert C. Weaver, Office of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Weaver became national chairman of the NAACP in 1960, and was approached by President John F. Kennedy for advice on civil rights.  In 1961 Kennedy appointed him administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, which would later become H.U.D. 

Dr. Weaver and his wife Ella would have to leave their apartment at 295 Central Park West and move to Washington in 1966.  President Lyndon B. Johnson elevated H.U.D. to a Cabinet position, making Weaver the first Black person appointed to the Cabinet. 

In 1974 Dr. Harold C. Martin resigned as chancellor of Union College in Schenectady, New York.  On July 8, the Schenectady Gazette reported, "Dr. and Mrs. Harold C. Martin have left their home on Union College campus to reside at 295 Central Park West in New York City, and in Rome, Italy."  The couple maintained a summer home in Rensselaerville, New York.

Exactly how much time they couple spent at 295 Central Park West is unclear, since Martin just had been appointed the president of the American Academy in Rome.  His tenure there was short, however.  He resigned in 1976 and was made a Dana Professor at Trinity College.  Following Dr. Martin's retirement in 1982, the couple moved permanently to Rensselaerville.

image via elliman.com

Rather amazingly, 295 Central Park West has never been converted to a co-op or condo, and remains a rental building.  Perhaps even more amazingly, it is still owned and managed by the Rudin family.  The dignified Art Moderne structure is one of the lesser known designs by one of America's chief 20th century apartment architects.

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Emery Roth & Sons' 1939 Normandy Apartments - 140 Riverside Drive

photo courtesy of LandMark West!

For thirty years beginning in 1903 Emery Roth designed apartment buildings throughout Manhattan embellished with Renaissance and even Art Nouveau decoration.  His first major work, the 1903 Belleclaire Hotel on Broadway at 77th Street was a delightfully fussy confection of shapes and materials that dripped with carved festoons and sculptured faces.  But changing times bring changing tastes, and Roth would adapt.

On August 26, 1938 The New York Sun reported that the 140 Riverside Drive, Inc., of which Roth was first vice-president, intended to replace the eight mansions along the block front of Riverside Drive between 86th and 87th Streets with an 18-story and penthouse apartment building.  Emery Roth & Sons had filed the plans the day before, placing construction costs at $1.45 million (more in the neighborhood of $26.3 million today).

The plans called for 16 suites and doctors' offices on the ground floor, 15 apartments each on the second through ninth floors, 13 each on the tenth through fifteenth, and 11 each on the upper three floors.  "On the penthouse floors there will be nine suites, some duplexed," said The Sun.

Roth still held true to Renaissance Revival, announcing that the "architectural design will be in the Italian Renaissance style of the same character as the San Remo Towers and Beresford Apartments on Central Park West."  Nevertheless, these were modern times and Roth was designing for well-to-do post-Depression apartment dwellers who expected cutting edge style. 

In the September 10, 1938 issue of The New York Sun Roth explained (perhaps defended) his design:

It will be definitely 1939.  That doesn't mean 'modernistic.'  Every building is ultra modern when erected, whether it is inspired by one of the historic periods of architecture or whether it was planned with a conscious search for originality...I am fond of so-called old Italian architecture.  If today I designed a building of old Italian architecture it would emerge nevertheless as a modern structure, always to be recognized as of 1939.

And so it was.  Roth's melded Renaissance with the streamlined Art Moderne movement with rounded corners, a dramatic concave entrance glittering with in mosaic tiles, and, instead of terra cotta decorations, simple flat surfaces.  It caused architectural critic Paul Goldberger of The New York Times to deem the design "schizophrenic" decades later on February 17, 1978.

photographs via streeteasy.com

The Normandy Apartments were built on an H plan embracing two gardens that totaled 9,000 square feet.  The sunken lobby looked out onto one of them.  Apartments had up-to-date amenities.  Every bedroom had its own bathroom, there were numerous closets, terraces on the setbacks, and in the penthouse apartments, wood and marble fireplaces.

The Normandy Apartments filled with moneyed residents, like City Court Justice Lewis L. Kahn, who signed a lease on a seven-room apartment before the building was completed; and Dutch financier Jacques Rosenstein, who also took a seven-room apartment with three baths.   Herman Wouk moved into his apartment on December 1, 1939.  He would leave to join the U. S. Naval Reserve following the attack on Pearl Harbor two years later, years before he wrote his Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Caine Mutiny.

Atypical of the Normandy's residents were Morris Wolensky (who most often went by Wolen) and his wife, actress Marion Callahan.  A beautiful blonde, Marion had already reached her theatrical peak with her appearance in the 1934 movie Murder at the Vanities.  Morris was known among gangland figures as "Dimples."  He and his partner, Tom Cuddy, according to the rackets bureau of the District Attorney's office, were "one of the three big [gambling] outfits of the prohibition days," according to The New York Times on August 4, 1942.

Wolen had first been arrested in 1918 in East Boston for petty thievery.  While other residents of the Normandy were hosting cocktail parties and attending the theater in evening dress, Wolen was avoiding detectives.  The Times explained "The police said they wanted to 'hustle him out of town,' as part of the drive against gamblers."  Unfortunately for the detectives and for Morris "Dimples" Wolen, another gangster, Max Fox, found him first.

On August 3, 1942 The Kingston Daily Freeman reported "As they sat in shirtsleeves playing a quiet game of bridge, a big-shot Broadway betting commissioner and a little-shot crook and gambler were shot to death early today by a masked gunman who escaped."  Max Fox trailed Wolen and Robert B. Greene to the White House Bridge Association's clubrooms near Times Square, strode in and fired six direct shots into the men.  The article said the fatal wound to "Dimples" was "a bullet behind the right ear."  It noted "Wolenski, reported recently married a chorus girl, lived in Riverside Drive.

Marion Callahan was unlucky in love.  original source unknown.

It is unclear how much longer Marion Callahan remained in their Normandy apartment.  Her luck in romantic relationships did not improve, however.  On July 25, 1945 the Elmira Star-Gazette reminded its readers that "About three years ago blonde Marion Callahan, former Vanities beauty, was bereaved by the spectacular slaying of her husband, Morris Wolenski, bodyguard for the late Lepke Buchalter.  Now death has stalked a boy friend, George Lee."  Marion and Lee were together the evening before when Lee got into an altercation with a sailor in uniform.  The sailor landed a blow that knocked Lee to the pavement, fatally injuring him.

photo courtesy of LandMark West!

The financial status of the Normandy's residents was reflected in an absent minded oversight by Mrs. Joseph Marcus in 1948.  Like many socialites, she volunteered time to worthy causes--hers being the American Red Cross.  That spring she sent her uniform to be mended at a tailor, who then sent it to the Commercial Cleaners in Mount Vernon to be dry cleaned.  There a young worker, Merrill J. Marshall, stuck his hand in the pocket and pulled out a little red bag in which was a sparkling brooch.  He took it home and gave it to his girlfriend.

Before long Mrs. Marcus was in a panicked search for her $2,700 diamond brooch (around $28,700 today).  The search led to Marshall who faced a judge on April 7.  He admitted taking taking the pin, but insisted he had not realized its value.  Luckily for him, the Marcuses interceded and had managed to have the original charge of grand larceny dropped.  Instead he was found guilty of stealing the red bag, which by itself was valued at more than $950 in today's money.  Before he left the courtroom, Judge Harry Krauss advised Marshall "to buy his girlfriend's gifts in the future."

The names of the Normandy Apartments residents appeared routinely in the society pages as daughters became debutantes, children were married, and dinner parties were hosted.  Rhoda Unger's name, however, appeared in print for a far different reason.

The wife of Mel Unger, on October 17, 1966 she returned to her parked car on Third Avenue between 56th and 57th Streets to find it broken into and looted.  Among the missing items was a valise containing "valuable business papers."  She rushed to find a phone to call her husband and in the excitement forgot that not only had the meter run out, but it was now past 4:00 making her parking spot in a no-standing zone.

When she returned her car was already hooked up to a tow truck.  As she later described it, "I got mad."  Indeed, she was so mad that she jumped upon the hood of her car and refused to dismount.   Soon there were policemen and a crowd of onlookers, many of them rooting "Stay there...don't get off...don't give up."  Their chants were countered by police, one of whom pleaded, "Come on, lady.  We won't tow the car if you'll come to the station house."

Rhoda Unger was steadfast.  She finally exhausted the patience of Police Lieutenant Thomas Long, who declared "This has gone far enough."  The protesting Rhoda was physically removed and hauled away in a patrol wagon while the crowd cheered "Rah, rah for Rhoda!"  Her maddening adventure cost her a $25 towing charge, $5 a day for tow pound fees, and $10 for parking in a prohibited zone.  

Among the moneyed residents at the time were Herman Steinlauf and his wife, the former Hannah Kerness.  Steinlauf had opened a record shop on Nassau Street in 1921.  Three years later he changed course, turning to sporting goods.  Now, Herman's World of Sporting Goods was said to be the largest sporting goods chain in the world.

The hands-on businessman told a reporter "Mostly I like to work around the store like anyone else, in my shirtsleeves.  That way, you see, I don't look any different from anyone else.  Even the people who come in to see me, they can't spot me so easily.  That's okay with me--they might want discounts or some other privileges."

Hannah Steinlauf died in May 1970.  Within the year Herman sold the chain to W. R. Grace & Co., remaining as chairman.  He stayed on in the Normandy apartment until his death in January 1974.

Another noteworthy resident was attorney Mathilda Miller Cuneo, who lived on the second floor.  She was living here in November 1975 when she was honored for her "outstanding contributions and involvement with her profession" by the New York League of Business and Professional Women.  Eleven years later a legal case would strike very close to home.

On November 14, 1985 The New York Times entitled an article "A New Battle of Normandy Raging on Upper West Side."  It all had to do with windows.

Emery Roth had incorporated casement windows into his design.  In 1979 the Normandy Apartments became a cooperative and, according to the residents' attorney David Warmflash, "many windows leak water and air."  Mathila Miller Cuneo sat on the building's board and in its September
meeting a vote was held to replace all the windows with "new, double-paned windows, as well as air-conditioners that go through the wall of the Normandy."  Of the seven members, Cuneo cast the only negative vote.

Unwilling to give up, she rallied sixteen residents to write letters to the Landmarks Preservation Commission.  Hers warned of "an urgent and threatening situation."  She told Joyce Purnick of The New York Times that replacing the windows "would have absolutely ruined the integrity of the design of the building, which is the finest example of Art Moderne in the City of New York."

The Landmarks Preservation Commission reacted by holding a hearing on November 12 to consider landmark status.  Remarkably, the Normandy Apartments was designed a landmark on the same day, putting a halt on what might have resulted in a hodge-podge of fenestration.

photo courtesy of LandMark West!

In its subsequent designation report, the LPC called the Normandy "one of the great monuments of Riverside Drive" and said it "symbolized the grand era of 20th century urbanism."