754 Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman
Designed to echo the now-vanished Marble Row erected some 60 years earlier by the powerful society widow Mary Mason Jones, what is now known as Bergdorf Goodman at 754 Fifth Avenue was in fact erected as a row of single shops merged into one architectural statement by Kahn & Jacobs. Finish in 1928 the building was gradually acquired by Bergdorf’s over the course of several years until the store owned its site completely in 1948.
A largely successful ground floor treatment by Neo-Classicist Allen Greenberg was applied in the 1980s with the intention of further unifying the building’s architecture. The interiors are a mélange of French Rococo and English Baroque influences.
Bergdorf Goodman’s is famed for the level of personal assistance given to shoppers and for its spectacular show windows, which are among New York’s most lavishly detailed.
754 Fifth Avenue replaced the vast Cornelius Vanderbilt Mansion; it is not itself yet a New York City landmark but has been under consideration for some time.