Park Plaza Apartments

1005 Jerome Avenue | also 1000 Anderson Avenue | Highbridge | built 1931

Open on the map6 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1928

    Builders Simon and Louis Bregman buy a strip on Anderson Avenue to squeeze in extra stories

    The brothers assembled a site with 365 feet on Jerome Avenue and hired Horace Ginsberg's firm. Zoning held semi-fireproof buildings to six stories, but a building running through the block between streets of different grade could rise higher above the lower one, so they also bought 50 feet on Anderson Avenue. Six stories there allowed ten above Jerome. The firm's press release put the land and building at about $2,000,000, with 800 rooms for 250 families.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1928

    Marvin Fine, a former gargoyle designer for Cass Gilbert, scraps his classical plans for an Art Deco facade

    Fine had spent 18 months in Gilbert's office drawing gargoyles for the New York Life Building before joining Ginsberg in 1926. His first drawings for Park Plaza used urns and swags, but he discarded them for a modernistic design, his first large job for the firm. He drew on Raymond Hood and William Van Alen, whom he knew professionally; the Chrysler Building was rising a block from Ginsberg's office on East 42nd Street.

    “Fine spent eighteen months in Gilbert's office designing gargoyles for the New York Life Building.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1929

    June 25

    A late-night fire of suspicious origin destroys the nearly finished Park Plaza

    The building was almost complete when flames swept through it shortly before midnight; the New York Times called the fire suspicious. Marvin Fine, leaving a theater with his parents on their wedding anniversary, saw extra editions announcing a Bronx apartment fire, recognized his building, and rushed uptown, but could not get past the huge crowds watching it burn.

    “…the building was almost complete when it was "swept away by a spectacular fire shortly before midnight" of June 25th, 1929.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  4. 1931

    Insurers and contractors finish a shorter Park Plaza after the fire

    As claims were settled, the insurance companies and contractors bought the site from the Bregmans and kept Ginsberg on to rebuild. The Fire and Buildings Departments required changes, including cutting the Jerome Avenue side to eight stories, and the ornament planned for the roofline, pointed terra-cotta triangles echoing the Chrysler Building, was dropped. Park Plaza was finally finished in 1931.

    “…the Fire and Buildings Departments insisted that certain changes be made in the plans, among which was the lowering of the Jerome Avenue frontage to eight stories.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  5. 1931

    Terra-cotta panels show flamingos, a Bronx sunrise and an architect offering his model to the Parthenon

    Polychrome terra-cotta bands alternate a fountain flanked by flamingos with the sun rising behind a large Bronx apartment house, topped by cast birds and squirrels. Below many windows, panels depict an architect holding up a model of his own building before the Parthenon, asking, in Fine's words, "What do you think?" The New Jersey firm Federal Seaboard Terra-Cotta Company cast the pieces.

    “Terra-cotta panels under many of the windows show a large scene of an architect presenting a model of his building to the Parthenon.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  6. 1981

    May 12

    The city designates Park Plaza a landmark as the building that brought Art Deco to the Bronx

    The Landmarks Preservation Commission called Park Plaza one of the borough's first Art Deco apartment houses and credited it with leading the way for the style across the Bronx. Its success won the Ginsberg firm the commission for the Noonan Plaza, and Fine recalled urging Ginsberg to find a design unique to the office, one that could serve as its trademark.

    “The success of the Park Plaza led to the commission for the Noonan Plaza, one of the grandest Art Deco apartment house complexes in the Bronx…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Further reading

Nearby

All 7 buildings with stories in Highbridge