950 Fifth Avenue

Another of the many high-quality designs by J.E.R. Carpenter, 950 Fifth Avenue is an unusually slender building for its height, suggesting, particularly at the lower floors, a stretched version of the mansion it presumably replaced.  Like the Harkness Mansion at 1 East 75th Street, the narrow lot occasioned a side entrance, but here the building… Continue reading

945 Fifth Avenue

A mid-century transitional building of 1949 by Emery Roth & Sons, 945 Fifth Avenue is a boldly massed composition in beige brick topped by a vast octagonal service tower, one of the most dramatic in New York.  The rather severe detailing includes multiple oculi around the tower, giving it a somewhat military appearance, as of… Continue reading

944 Fifth Avenue

A restrained Beaux Arts palazzo by the architect Nathan Korn, 944 Fifth Avenue contains only 15 apartments in its 14 floors.  The four-story limestone base is extremely fine.

1 East 75th Street, the Commonwealth Fund

One of the most architecturally distinguished houses ever built on Fifth Avenue and one of relatively few such buildings in the city to remain intact inside and out, 1 East 75th Street was built for the philanthropist Edward Harkness and his wife, Mary. A restrained design by James Gamble Rogers, who would go on to… Continue reading

936 Fifth Avenue

Pleasant but not particularly distinguished, 936 Fifth Avenue was designed by H.J. Harmon and completed in 1955.  It replaced two spectacular mansions, including the townhouse designed for Grace Rainey Rogers by Carrere & Hastings.