990 Fifth Avenue: Review and Ratings

Review of 990 Fifth Avenue by Carter Horsley

This 14-story structure at 990 Fifth Avenue on the northeast corner at 80^th Street is one of the most exclusive and elegant buildings on the avenue because of both its limestone façade and fine detailing and the fact that it has only five duplex apartments and one triplex unit. 

Exquisitely designed in Italian-Renaissance-palazzo-style by Rosario Candela and the firm of Warren & Wetmore, this building has a sidestreet, canopied entrance and attractive landscaping. 

It was built in 1927, two years after the equally handsome building directly across 80th Street was completed to designs by J. E. R. Carpenter, Candela's predecessor as the preeminent designer of luxury apartment buildings on the Upper East Side. 

This building was developed by Fred T. Ley & Company and was converted to a cooperative in 1952.

Bottom Line

Across the avenue from the Metropolitan Museum of art, this building’s location is along the avenue’s “Museum Mile.” It is also only a block away from cross-town bus service and is convenient to a supermarket on Madison Avenue.

Description

The building has a three-story rusticated limestone base above which is a balustraded bandcourse with protruding window frames on the fourth floor.  

The main torso of the building is relatively plain except for three arched window surrounds with balconies in the center of the sidestreet façade on the seventh floor. 

There is a stringcourse above the 10^th floor and another balustraded bandcourse above the 11^th floor with window treatments similar to the fourth floor.  

The building has a nice cornice and a canopied entrance and many of the second floor windows have pediment surrounds. 

Several windows on the 10^th floor have small cast-iron curved balconies. 

According to Andrew Alpern, the author of “The New York Apartment Houses of Rosario Candela and James Carpenter, “the duplex arrangement allowed for 11-foot-ceilings on the living room levels with nine-foot-four-inch ceilings on the bedroom floors.”

Amenities

The building has a doorman and allows pets.

Apartments

The triplex has a 17-foot-wide entry foyer on the 12^th floor that leads to a 29-foot-long living room with fireplace, a 24-foot-wide dining room with fireplace, a 24-foot-wide pantry and a 15-foot-wide kitchen and a 13-foot-wide bedroom and three bedrooms and a 23-foot-wide library with a fireplace on the 13^th floor and a 19-foot-wide master bedroom with a 17-foot-wide sitting room with a fireplace and extensive terraces on the 14^th floor. 

The duplex on the 10^th and 11^th floors has a 9-foot-wide entry foyer on the lower floor that leads to a 15-foot-long library and a 25-foot-long living room with a wood-burning fireplace and a 23-foot-long dining room with a fireplace next to an enclosed 25-foot-wide kitchen and a 13-foot-long bedroom.  The upper floor had a 23-foot-wide master bedroom with a 13-foot-wide dressing area on the west side and two other bedrooms. 

History

The building was erected on the former site of the Frank W. Woolworth house that had been designed by C. P. H. Gilbert in Francois I style. 

According to an August 5, 2011 article in the New York Observer by Elise Knusten, Philanthropist Samuel P. Peabody, who “spent most of his life as a humble educator” at St. Bernard’s School in Manhattan and the Rye Country Day school in Westchester, County, sold his five-bedroom duplex in the building in 2011 for $15 million to Daniel H. Stern, the co-CEO of Reservoir Capital, eight days after it had been listed for about $13.5 million.  

Mr. Peabody’s wife, Judith Peabody, who died the previous year, was prominent in New York City philanthropic circles, according to the article. 

At about the same time, the triplex penthouse went on the market with a $42 million pricetag. 

One of the building’s residents was Peter Lawford, the actor, and his wife, Patricia Kennedy, one of President Kennedy’s sisters.

A June 26, 2013 article by Jeremiah Budin at ny.curbed.com reported that the buiding's triplex penthouse was put on the market for $50 million, $8 million more than had been asked in 2010.  It said that the apartment included a private elevator, five fireplaces and $23,082 monthly maintenance charges.