The Majestic is a housing cooperative located at 115 Central Park West between 71st Street and 72nd in New York City. The apartment building was constructed in 1930-1931 in the Art Deco style by real estate developer Irwin S. Chanin. It replaced the Hotel Majestic, designed by Alfred Zucker in 1894, which had been home to Gustav Mahler and Edna Ferber, among others.[1]
The steel framed building was originally planned as a 45 story hotel, but the plans were changed midway through construction due to the depression and the passing of the Multiple Dwelling Act.[2]
The Majestic has 238 apartments in 29 stories. Like the San Remo cooperative three blocks north, it has two towers facing Central Park.
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Among the well-known residents of the Majestic are: actors Milton Berle and Zero Mostel, and newspaper columnist Walter Winchell.[3] Fashion designer Marc Jacobs lived there as a teenager with his grandmother in the 1980s,[4] television personality Conan O'Brien sold his co-op in the mid-2010.[5]
The Majestic was home to some of the former heads of the Luciano crime family (later called the Genovese crime family) including Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello, and Meyer Lansky. In 1957, Vincent "The Chin" Gigante shot Frank Costello in the lobby of the Majestic in a failed assassination attempt.[3] Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, a founding member of the New York syndicate, along with Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano, and head of its security arm, Murder, Inc., lived in apartment 17J in 1933.[6]