372 Fifth Avenue: Review and Ratings

Review of 372 Fifth Avenue by Carter Horsley

This 11-story cooperative apartment building at 372 Fifth Avenue traces its history to 1910 when it was erected as a six-story flagship store for Best & Co.

In 1929, Best & Co. expanded it by three floors and added a 12-story annex at 7 West 35th Street and eventually two more floors were added to the main building when the building was converted by Ganbir Limited to a cooperative apartment building in 1981. Gambir had acquired it in 1978 from the Bowery Savings Bank for $1,050,000.

According to an article by William G. Blair in the June 27, 1981 edition of The New York Times, the building had 14 apartments, a floor on the second through the ninth floors, nine of them studios, four-one-bedroom units and one two-bedroom apartment. Prices of typical apartments on the third, fourth and fifth floors will range from $49,600 and a monthly maintenance of $360 for a studio to $142,500 and a month maintenance of $1,034 for a two-bedroom unit....The 10th and 11th floors will contain eight duplex apartments, two one-bedroom apartments and three each of two-bedroom and three-bedroom units, all with terraces on the tenth floor. The penthouse duplexes will range in price from $160,000 to $260,000."

The building now contains 113 apartments. Most of the apartments have high ceilings.

Best & Co. was founded in 1879 by Albert Best and for 20 years it operated on the southeast corner of 23rd Street and Sixth Avenue on Ladies' Mile, the city's elegant shopping district. The store was widely known as "The Lilliputian Bazaar" and was an upscale store specializing in children's wear and ladies' apparel.

In 1910, the company moved to a new limestone-clad building at 372 Fifth Avenue as a children's department store in the city's new elegant shopping district that included B. Altman's on the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue at 34th Street, Lord & Taylor on the northwest corner at 38th Street, and W. & J. Sloane on the southwest corner at 38th Street at Fifth Avenue.

In 1947, Best & Co. took over the former Union Club building on the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 51st Street and leased its 35th Street site to Bond Stores which hired Morris Lapidus to redesign the interiors. Bond remained at the site until the mid-1970s.

The building now has a roofdeck, 24-hour doorman, and laundry rooms on each floor.