417 Park Avenue: Review and Ratings

Review of 417 Park Avenue by Carter Horsley

The completion of Grand Central Terminal and the covering of the railroad tracks north of it on Park Avenue led to its rapid redevelopment as a grand boulevard of luxury apartments.

The area between 46th Street, where the great New York Central Building, which is now the Helmsley Building, straddles the avenue, and 57th Street was filled with imposing and very harmonious office buildings, apartment buildings and hotels, most of which took their style from the brown-brick masonry designs of Warren & Wetmore, the main architects of Grand Central Terminal and the surrounding "Terminal City." The main exceptions, were the Episcopal Church of St. Bartholomew and the Art Deco-style Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

Lever House, the sleek, green-glass small office building designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill at 53rd Street, however, changed everything, ushering in the corporate era for Park Avenue.

Most of the contextual buildings soon gave way to new office towers. In his excellent book, "Park Avenue, Street of Dreams," (Atheneum, New York, 1990), James Trager observed that 417 Park Avenue "is the last survivor of at least thirteen luxury apartment houses, most of them built before World War I," along this section of the avenue, that were the prototypes for the residential development on the avenue north of the commercial district.

"Bing & Bing put up this limestone-faced building and purchased the property just to its south, occupied by a two-story garage at the time, in order to prevent anyone from blocking essential windows with another tall building...and thus ruining its investment. Emery Roth designed an elaborate overhanging roof cornice of copper, now green with age....with few exceptions each apartment has an elevator foyer to itself, and each has wood burning fireplaces."

The 14-story building, which has a canopied, sidestreet entrance, was converted to a cooperative in 1946 and has included many socially prominent residents. It has four penthouse apartments, two of which are duplexes.