Imperial House

150 East 69th Street | also 161 East 68th Street, 925 Lexington Avenue, 937 Lexington Avenue | Upper East Side | built 1959

Open on the map5 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. 1959

    The Fisher Brothers start Imperial House, the city's largest postwar apartment building

    Construction begins in 1959 on Imperial House, which the Fisher Brothers own and build to designs by Emery Roth & Sons. When it is completed in 1961 it is New York's largest post-war apartment building, with 30 residential floors and 350 apartments and offices. Its white-brick exterior would later be singled out among the roughly 140 white-brick apartment buildings of Manhattan.

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1968

    November

    Joan Crawford moves into apartment 22G at Imperial House

    The actor Joan Crawford takes up residence at Imperial House in November 1968, beginning in apartment 22G. She stays in that unit until 1973, when she shifts to 22H, and she remains in the building until her death in 1977.

    “The actor Joan Crawford lived at Imperial House from November 1968 to her death in 1977. Crawford lived at apartment 22G from 1968 to 1973…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1971

    Tenants fight the first non-eviction co-op conversion at Imperial House

    A group of investors led by N. Anthony Rolfe turns Imperial House, then a block-square building with 378 apartments, into a co-op under the first non-eviction conversion plan. Its tenants, among them financiers, lawyers, diplomats and chief executives, organize so well that two-thirds sign binding agreements not to bargain individually with the sponsor. Unable to evict those who refuse to buy, the sponsor creates the co-op anyway, with one-bedrooms priced from $43,000.

    Source: The New York Times

  4. 1975

    Architectural Digest features Joan Crawford's apartment 22H

    Architectural Digest publishes a feature on Joan Crawford's apartment at Imperial House. She had moved from 22G to 22H in 1973 and stays there until her death in 1977.

    “Her 22H apartment was featured in Architectural Digest in 1975.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  5. 2008

    Thirty-seven years after the conversion, the sponsor is still waiting on seven tenants

    In 2008 N. Anthony Rolfe, then 85, still had seven tenants who had not given up their Imperial House apartments, nearly four decades after his group converted the building. By 1980 another 213 apartments had been sold, and holding the rest cost him maintenance charges that were usually higher than the stabilized rents. A six-room apartment listed at $96,700 in 1971 was on the market for $3.35 million.

    Source: The New York Times

Further reading

Nearby

All 93 buildings with stories in Upper East Side