Hampshire House

150 Central Park South | Midtown | built 1940

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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. 1931

    March 24

    The cornerstone of Hampshire House is laid on Central Park South

    The cornerstone of Hampshire House, then described as a thirty-seven-story apartment and residential building going up at 150 Central Park South, was laid on March 24, 1931. Real estate men, builders and architects attended the ceremony. The Times reported it the next day in its real estate section.

    Source: Internet Archive

  2. 1936

    December 30

    A judge orders trustees to finish the unfinished Hampshire House

    On December 30, 1936, Justice Alfred Frankenthaler directed that Hampshire House be completed by the trustees of the New York Title and Mortgage Company's Series C-2 mortgage certificate issue. The Times described the 34-story apartment hotel at 150 Central Park South as unfinished and unoccupied since 1931.

    Source: Internet Archive

  3. 1937

    Dorothy Draper gives the Hampshire House lobby a black-and-white checkerboard floor

    In 1937, decorator Dorothy Draper designed the interiors of the Hampshire House apartment hotel from top to bottom. The lobby got a black and white checkerboard floor, and a glass Art Deco mantel surround. Draper found Brooklyn artisans to make large scroll-and-shell reliefs and multi-arm chandeliers, and she installed sliding glass doors in place of shower curtains.

    “In 1937, Draper created a top-to-bottom decorative scheme for the exclusive Hampshire House apartment hotel, giving the lobby a bold black and white checkerboard floor…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 1937

    October 16

    Hampshire House opens on Central Park South after a Depression-era foreclosure

    Developer Eugene Lignante's 1931 apartment-hotel project stalls in the Depression and is foreclosed in 1933; the Cleveland-based H.K. Ferguson Company completes it as Hampshire House. Interior designer Dorothy Draper decorates the 36-story building in black, white, and turquoise, giving the Regency and Art Deco tower its signature look.

    Source: Wikipedia

  5. 1938

    October 21

    Socialite Dorothy Hale dies in a fall from her 16th-floor apartment

    Former Ziegfeld girl Dorothy Hale, a friend of painter Frida Kahlo, falls to her death from her Hampshire House window in the early morning after an evening out that included a party at the 21 Club. The following year Kahlo paints a work showing Hale falling past the building's facade, still in the black velvet gown she wore that night.

    Source: Ephemeral New York

  6. 1940

    Dancer Ray Bolger leases a furnished apartment at Hampshire House

    The Times of January 13, 1940, reported that Ray Bolger, whom it called a motion picture and stage dancing star, had leased a furnished apartment at Hampshire House, 150 Central Park South. The lease went through the broker Talman Bigelow, Inc.

    Source: Internet Archive

  7. 1949

    Hampshire House converts to a cooperative

    Hampshire House became a cooperative in 1949. Writing in 1990, Christopher Gray reported that the building once mixed shareholders' apartments with transient suites, and that general manager Rene Sauthier said the suites were brought into the co-op in the 1960s. By then 206 shareholders ran the building themselves, with no managing agent or hotel operator.

    Source: Internet Archive

  8. 1964

    April 8

    Julien Arpels of Van Cleef & Arpels dies in his Hampshire House apartment

    Julien Arpels, president of the jewelry firm Van Cleef & Arpels, died on April 8, 1964, in his apartment at Hampshire House. He was 79. The Times noted that he split his time between New York and Paris, that the firm's New York store stood at 744 Fifth Avenue, and that in 1945 he was awarded the French Legion of Honor in Washington.

    Source: Internet Archive

  9. 1977

    Opera stars including Plácido Domingo make Hampshire House their home

    Tenor Plácido Domingo moves into Hampshire House, and Luciano Pavarotti follows in 1983, part of a long roster of opera singers drawn to the Central Park South building. Other residents over the decades include Sophia Loren, Vladimir Nabokov, and Art Garfunkel.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

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All 178 buildings with stories in Midtown