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About 834 Fifth Avenue
This sumptuous, 16-story apartment building was designed by Rosario Candela and is widely considered one of his greatest luxury apartment designs.
Erected by Anthony Campagna in 1930, it is directly across from the entrance to the Central Park Zoo.
The limestone-clad façade is rusticated at its base and has some Art Deco-style cartouches. The building has many duplex apartments with grand living spaces facing Central Park and one tenant once had a chinchilla rug in the den.
One of the world's most desirable and expensive addresses, the 24-unit building has a concierge, a doorman, an elevator person, an attractive, canopied entrance, and sidewalk landscaping. Although it is a large building, it only has about two apartments per floor. One apartment near the top has very tall arched windows facing south and the building has a garden courtyard with a fountain.
In his book, "The City Observed, New York, A Guide To The Architecture of Manhattan," (Vintage Books, 1979), Paul Goldberger, then architecture critic of The New York Times, noted that Candela's buildings "were always understated," adding that "The windows are vast, not so much out of a desire to bring light in as because the rooms themselves are immense and the windows are scaled to them." "This is architecture that represents not aspiration, but arrival, a self-assuredness that earlier, more ornate building could only strive toward. It is a bit reserved but…it brings admiration rather than irritation you know that this is strong enough so that the whole image of elegance would not fall apart if the doorman forgot to wear white gloves one day."
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