907 Fifth Avenue

907 Fifth Avenue is a luxury residential housing cooperative in Manhattan, New York City.

The twelve-story, limestone-faced building is located at Fifth Avenue and 72nd Street on a site once occupied by the 1893 residence of James A. Burden, which had been designed by R. H. Robertson. The apartment block, built in 1916, was the first apartment building to replace a private mansion on Fifth Avenue above 59th Street. It was converted to a cooperative in 1955.^[1] J. E. R. Carpenter was the architect; he would be called upon to design many of the luxury apartment buildings that gave a new scale to Fifth Avenue in the 'teens and twenties of the 20th century.^[2] The building won him the 1916 gold medal of the American Institute of Architects.^[3]

The building has the aspect of an Italian Renaissance palazzo, built around a central court. Its first four floors are lightly rusticated; deep quoins carry the rusticated feature up the corners to the boldly projecting top cornice. A strong secondary cornice above the fourth floor once made a conciliatory nod to the cornice lines of the private houses that flanked it, whose owners had fought its construction in court.^[4] When it opened, there were two twelve-room apartments on most floors.^[5] The largest apartment in the building occupied the entire top floor, with 25 rooms; it was taken by Herbert L. Pratt, a Standard Oil Company vice-president, at a rent of $30,000 a year.^[6]

Later residents included the reclusive heiress Huguette M. Clark, who owned all of the eighth floor and half of the 12th.^[7]

References

Coordinates: 40°46′19.5″N 73°58′01″W / 40.772083°N 73.96694°W / 40.772083; -73.96694