870 Fifth Avenue: Review and Ratings

Review of 870 Fifth Avenue by Carter Horsley

One of several beige-brick apartment houses built shortly after World War II in the 60's on Fifth Avenue, this 19-story cooperative apartment house at 870 Fifth Avenue on the northeast corner at 68^th Street has 94 apartments. 

The building was erected in 1949 by Simon Brothers and designed by William I. Hohauser and originally had 106 apartments.

Bottom Line

Although this building is relatively modest by Fifth Avenue standards, its fabulous views of Central Park and the midtown skyline, attractive side-street entrance, many angled windows and very convenient location make it very desirable.

Description

The building has an entrance on the sidestreet and many corner windows. Although these windows are not curved, the bays in which they are located are and they give the building a pleasing soft edge. 

With an attractive watertank enclosure, this building is contextual with its neighbors and its top is nicely terraced. 

The beige-brick building has a three-story limestone base and permits protruding air-conditioners.

Amenities

The building has four passenger elevators, a laundry facility and individual storage rooms in the basement and “radio outlets will have antenna for long and short wave reception and a conduit will be provided for television,” according to an article in The New York Times. 

The building has two attended elevators, a doorman, a roof deck, a gym, a bicycle room and is friendly to pets under 15 pounds.

Apartments

A December 7, 1947 article on the building in The New York Times noted that the apartments have “concealed radiation and modulated temperature control for each room,”  adding that “the plans eliminate all rear apartments and provide frontages either on Sixty-eighth Street with 200 feet of southerly exposure or the 100-foot frontage on Fifth Avenue, overlooking Central Park. 

Apartment 8H has an 11-foot-wide entry foyer that leads to a 26-foot-long living room that opens onto a 17-foot-long bedroom.  The unit has an 18-foot-long enclosed dining room with three windows, a 10-foot-long kitchen, a 10-foot-long maid’s room and two other bedrooms. 

Apartment 8A is a two-bedroom unit that has an 11-foot-square entry foyer that opens onto a 24-foot-long living room and a 19-foot-long dining room that is next to an enclosed 10-foot-long kitchen and an 11-foot-long maid’s room. 

Apartment 8D is a one-bedroom unit that has a 7-foot-long entry foyer that leads to a 13-foot-wide gallery that opens onto a 24-foot-long living room and a 13-foot-long dining room/den neat to a 23-foot-long windowed, eat-in kitchen. 

Apartment 2F is a one-bedroom unit that has an 11-foot-long entry foyer that leads to a 23-foot-long living room and an 11-foot-long dining room next to a 10-foot-long kitchen.

History

In their excellent book, "New York 1960, Architecture and Urbanism Between the Second World War and the Bicentennial" (The Monacelli Press, 1995), Robert A. M. Stern, Thomas Mellins and David Fishman provide the following commentary on this building: 

"To make way for William I. Hohauser's 870 Fifth Avenue (1949)..., the houses of M. C. Inman (R. J. Robertson, 1893) and Robert L. Stuart (William Schickel, 1882) were demolished. The Stuart house had been extensively altered by McKim, Mead & White following its purchase in 1897 by the financier and sportsman William C. Whitney.

“The new building,” the authors continued, “with nineteen stories and a penthouse, lacked the interest and panache of the Century, the New Yorker, the Cardozo and the other small-scale, shipshape hotels in Miami Beach for which Hohauser had become known. It was not even as interesting as his depression-era apartment houses on the Bronx's Grand Concourse, such as the Dorhage and the Edna. Still, the beige-brick building...contained numerous indentations and rounded bays to create a lively effect. But it also essentially filled its site and zoning envelope, respecting the street's dominant building wall.” 

Simon Brothers also erected the apartment house at 965 Fifth Avenue on the site of the former Jacob H. Schiff mansion and the house at 20 Fifth Avenue, the former site of the Rhinelander’s Berkeley Hotel.