950 Park Avenue: Review and Ratings

Review of 950 Park Avenue by Carter Horsley

This attractive, 14-story apartment building at 950 Park Avenue has 29 apartments and is located on the southwest corner at 82^nd Street.

It was erected in 1921 and converted to a cooperative in 1948.

The building was designed by James Edwin Ruthven Carpenter, the leading architect of luxury apartment buildings of his generation. His other Park Avenue buildings include 550, 580, 625, 630, 635, 640, 655, 812, 960 and 1050 and his buildings on Fifth Avenue include 810, 825, 907, 920, 950, 988, 1030, 1035, 1060, 1115, 1120, 1143, 1150, 1165 and 1170 as well as 2 East 66th Street.

Bottom Line

A relatively plain but solid pre-war building with wood-burning fireplaces very close to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and P. S. 6.

Description

A red-brick building in the Italian-Renaissance-palazzo style, it has a two-story limestone entrance surround with a canopy flanked by sconces and sidewalk landscaping on the side-street.

It has new windows, masonry quoins and stringcourses above the first, 3^rd, 6^th, 8^th and 10^th floors and a bandcourse above the 4^th and 11^th floors. It has a cornice and the lower three floors are rusticated masonry. It has inconsistent fenestration, and some protruding and discrete air-conditioners.

Amenities

The pet-friendly building has a doorman, a roof deck and a fitness center.

Apartments

In “The New York Apartment Houses of Rosario Candela and James Carpenter,” Andrew Alpern wrote that “the plan of 950 Park Avenue is nearly identical to Carpenter’s typical plan for 550 Park of three years earlier, with an eight-room and a 12-room apartment on each floor.” “As was customary at the time,” he continued, “the rooftop was not used for the sort of terraced penthouse apartments that would become commonplace a few years later.  Instead, that seemingly prime space houses 25 servants’ rooms. Even as late as 1940, an alteration of the roof structure produced only one apartment for the building’s superintendent, leaving 11 servants’ rooms, and six storage rooms.”

The typical 12-room unit with five bedrooms had a 21-foot-long entry foyer that opened onto a 21-foot-wide living room with fireplace that connected to a 16-foot-long library and a 20-foot-wide dining room next to a large pantry and a 19-foot-wide, windowed kitchen and three maid’s rooms.

The typical 8-room unit with three bedrooms had a 14-foot-wide entry foyer that lead t a 21-foot-wide living room with fireplace and a 20-foot-wide dining room next to a long pantry and a 17-foot-long kitchen and two maids’ rooms.

Location

It is two blocks east from the main entrance to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and is on the same street as P. S. 6.

This area has excellent cross-town bus service at 79th and 86th Streets and an express subway station is at 86th Street and Lexington Avenue, which is a major retail location.