Stuyvesant Fish House

1012 Madison Avenue | also 25 East 78th Street | Upper East Side | built 1910

Open on the map9 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. 1900

    Mamie Fish plans a forty-guest dinner followed by vaudeville soon after moving in

    Soon after the Fishes moved into Stanford White's new palazzo, Mamie Fish began the entertaining that would make the house socially famous. The New-York Tribune reported on July 25, 1900 that she would ask only forty people to her dinner the following Saturday. A vaudeville entertainment would follow, with a number of further invitations issued for the show.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1900

    Stanford White designs the Stuyvesant Fish House

    The Fishes hired Stanford White to design a five-story Italian palazzo at the corner of Madison Avenue and 78th Street, finished in 1900. Its facade is faced in two colors of brick with limestone trim. Stuyvesant Fish, a son of Hamilton Fish, worked mainly in the railroad industry and was also involved with the National Park Bank and Mutual Life Insurance Company.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1914

    Mamie Fish hosts a sixty-guest dinner for the shipwrecked Duke and Duchess of Manchester

    After Frederick Vanderbilt's yacht Warrior wrecked on a South American cruise, the Duke and Duchess of Manchester returned to New York by steamer. Mamie Fish steadied their nerves with a dinner at her home for sixty guests, with dancing by Mr. and Mrs. Murray Anderson. The Times added that monologues and exhibitions of fancy dancing followed the meal.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1914

    A 500-guest ball at the Fish mansion ends when the orchestras play Home, Sweet Home

    The same year, Mamie Fish invited 500 guests to a ball, and the Times described guests arriving shortly after 10 pm to be received at the head of the stairs on the second floor. Two orchestras played for dancing there, and a buffet supper ran continuously from midnight, with a Pierrot and Pierrette dancing to four Neapolitan players. At a little past 2 am the orchestras struck up Home, Sweet Home, the tune she used to tell guests it was time to go home.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1924

    February

    An auction sells the Fish family's art and furnishings at the mansion

    Marian "Mamie" Fish was known for playful parties, once seating guests to dine with a "prince" who turned out to be a monkey. She died in 1915, and her husband Stuyvesant died in 1923. The following February the contents were auctioned on the premises, including Brussels tapestries, a Louis XVI parlor suite and Mrs. Fish's silver.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1930

    A French modern-art magazine and later a private school take over the mansion

    After the Fish family's grand entertaining ended, the house served briefly as offices. By 1930 the English edition of Formes, a French periodical on modern art, kept its editorial offices here. In the 1940s the building became home to the private Walt Whitman School.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  7. 1952

    Philanthropist Frank Atran donates the mansion to the Jewish Labor Committee

    Textile manufacturer and philanthropist Frank Z. Atran bought the former Fish house in 1952 and gave it to the Jewish Labor Committee as its headquarters. Earlier uses included the offices of the French art journal Formes in 1930 and the private Walt Whitman School in the 1940s.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  8. 1985

    The Limited buys the mansion for $13.25 million and guts Stanford White's interiors

    In 1985 the retailer The Limited bought the Stuyvesant Fish House for $13.25 million to use as its offices. The interiors Stanford White created at the turn of the century were stripped out, and the company praised its new look as ultramodern. Daytonian in Manhattan calls the loss of the interiors unforgivable, though the exterior still ranks among the grandest Madison Avenue survivors.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  9. 2006

    The Bloomberg Family Foundation buys the Fish mansion

    In 2006 the Bloomberg Family Foundation, headed by Michael R. Bloomberg, bought the house for $45 million. The retailer The Limited had purchased it in 1985 for $13.25 million for its offices, and Stanford White's interiors were gutted during that period.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

Nearby

All 93 buildings with stories in Upper East Side