970 Park Avenue: Review and Ratings

Review of 970 Park Avenue by Carter Horsley

This apartment building at 970 Park Avenue on the southwest corner at 83^rd Street overlooks the Roman Catholic Church of St. Ignatius Loyola and its school and related facilities on the avenue block just to the north.

The red-brick building was erected in 1912 as a 12-story building and was converted to a cooperative in 1987 by Martin J. Raynes who added two triplex penthouses with circular staircases, "greenhouse" studies and large terraces. The expansion employed unused air rights from the building and from the adjoining building at 66 East 83^rd Street.  (Raynes made a similar addition of penthouses to 525 Park Avenue and while both resulted in impressive new apartments, they did not, unfortunately, relate contextually to their buildings even if they are setback on the roofs.)

The 15-story building has 40 apartments.

It was designed for Bing & Bing by Schwartz & Gross, whose other buildings on the avenue include 470, 525, 885, 888, 911, 930, 941, 983, 1045, 1070, 1125 and 1165.

Bottom Line

A pre-war, red-brick apartment building with some decorative trim and two added triplex penthouses across from the campus of the Roman Catholic Church of St. Ignatius Loyola.

Description

The building has a two-story limestone base and an attractive two-story-high, limestone-framed entrance with what Seth Kugel of The New York Times described as “flat-faced faux columns’ and protruding air-conditioners.

In his July 9, 2006 article about Bing & Bing in The Times, Mr. Kugel said that the lobbies of this building and 1000 Park Avenue “are worth a peek – or depending on the humor of the doorman and the charm of the visitor, a quick duck inside,” adding that “as with other Bing & Bings, refinement is the norm: upholstered chairs and couches, grandfather clocks, paintings and the like.”

In his March 9, 2008 “Streetscapes” column in The New York Times, Christopher Gray said that the “solid red brick façade and simple Classical-style styling detailing” gave 970 Park Avenue “a roomy, unpretentious air.”

The building has a canopied entrance with a two-story entrance surround, a bandcourse above the second floor, balustraded balconies on the 6^th, 8^th and 10^th floors, a bandcourse above the 23th floor and window surrounds on the 12^th and 13^th floors.  

It has an exposed rooftop watertank.

Amenities

The building has a doorman.

Apartments

Apartments have fireplaces and high ceilings.

Apartment 3W is a one-bedroom unit with a 14-foot-wide entry foyer that leads to a 22-foot-long living room and a 9-foot-long enclosed kitchen.

History

Benjamin Stern of the Stern Brothers Department store bought 970 Park Avenue soon after it was completed and, and after his death in 1939, later acquired three buildings on 83^rd Street, two of which were sold to the William Waldorf Astor estate.  Bing & Bing subsequently bought back 970 Park Avenue along with 64-68 East 83^rd Street.  An April 29, 1951 article about the purchase in The New York Times said that “construction of 970 Park Avenue marked the beginning of apartment houses on upper Park Avenue,” adding that “as a result of the success in renting 970 Park Avenue, Bing & Bing the following year built the seventeen-story apartment house at 903 Park Avenue, northeast corner of Seventh-ninth Street” that “was reported at that time to the be the tallest apartment building in the world.”  The article added that Bing & Bing went on to build the Drake Hotel on the northeast corner of 56^th Street and Park Avenue that was demolished by Harry Macklowe for a 1,432-foot-high mixed-use tower on which construction began in 2012.

In a June 30, 1985 article in The New York Times, Dee Wedemeyer wrote that “the Bing & Bing buildings are regarded as among the city’s finest prewar properties,” adding that “the company, a development and management concern founded in 1906, built hotels and apartments at a time when luxurious in New York was still synonymous with spacious.”  The article indicated that Bing & Bing had sold 29 apartment buildings with 1,877 apartments to Martin J. Raynes and Martin J. Wygod for more than $250 million. 

In addition to 970 Park Avenue, Mr. Raynes bought 2 Horatio Street, 1000 Park Avenue, 433 East 51^st Street, 400 East 52^nd Street, 414 East 52^nd Street, 424 East 52^nd Street, 434 East 52^nd Street, 45 East 66^th Street, 245 East 72^nd Street, 210, 215, 220, 225, 230 and 235 East 73^rd Street, 129 East 82^nd Street, 64-66 East 83^rd Street, 235 West End Avenue, 162 West 56^th Street, 1391 Second Avenue, 1407 Second Avenue, 312 West 71^st Street, 233 East 72^nd Street, 204-6 East 73^rd Street, 224, 232, 240 and 250 East 74^th Street.

Location

The building is not far from the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue and there are other schools and religious institutions nearby. Cross-town buses run on 86th Street and an express subway station is at Lexington Avenue and 86th Street.