953 Fifth Avenue: Review and Ratings

Review of 953 Fifth Avenue by Carter Horsley

This very attractive, slim, mid-block apartment building at 953 Fifth Avenue between 76^th and 77^th Streets was designed by Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes, the author of the six-volume project on the “Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909.”

The 15-story building was built in Neo-Renaissance style in 1925 and converted to a co-operative in 1946.  It has only 7 units.

Bottom Line

A very elegant, slim, mid-block, limestone-clad pre-war co-operative apartment building with duplex units and an elevator operator and a doorman.

Description

The building has a three-story rusticated limestone base and a green copper mansard-style roof.

It has a limestone façade with quoins and a stringcourse at the 13-floor, a large bracketed bandcourse at the 14^th floor and a balustrade cornice above the 14^th floor.

It has sidewalk landscaping and a canopied, three-step-up entrance.

It permits window air-conditioners and has consistent fenestration.

The first floor windows have arched window surrounds.

Amenities

The building has a full-time doorman and an elevator operator.  It is pet friendly.

Apartments

The architect lived in a duplex on the 7^th and 8^th floors that was described as “compact but immaculate and elegant - like a private coach on a European express train,” observed Christopher Gray in his “Streetscapes” column January 29, 2006 in The New York Times.

The duplex on the 9^th and 10^th floors has a long entry foyer with a staircase to the upper level and it leads to the “grand room” facing Central Park with a wood-burning fireplace adjacent to a 18-foot-long library with a fireplace and an 18-foot-long, windowed dining room with a fireplace next to a very large kitchen with an island.  The upper floor has three bedrooms and an 18-foot-wide nursery.

History

His family home was the brownstone mansion on the southeast corner at 37^th Street that is now the bookstore of The Morgan Library.

His uncle, William Earle Dodge Stokes, built the Ansonia at 2109 Broadway between 73^rd and 74^th Streets.