William and Helen Ziegler House

116 East 55th Street | East Midtown | built 1927

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.

1926
August
William Ziegler Jr. buys land for a Georgian-style mansion
Ziegler, heir to a baking-powder fortune worth $16 to $20 million, purchased adjoining brownstones in August 1926 and hired architect William Lawrence Bottomley to design a neo-Georgian mansion modeled on 18th-century Virginia plantation houses.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
1927
November
William and Helen Ziegler move into the finished mansion
Ziegler married Helen Martin Murphy in January 1927, and the couple moved into their completed four-story townhouse that November. Ziegler devoted much of his life to philanthropy for the blind, heading several foundations, until his death in 1958.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
2001
May 1
The city landmarks the unaltered Ziegler mansion
Despite decades as commercial office space for tenants including an architecture firm, the Radio Advertising Bureau, and international banks, the mansion's exterior remained unchanged, leading the Landmarks Preservation Commission to designate it a city landmark on May 1, 2001.
Source: Wikipedia

Nearby