William Ziegler Jr. House

2 East 63rd Street | Upper East Side | built 1919

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. 1920

    William Ziegler Jr. builds a Renaissance-style palazzo

    Royal Baking Powder president and 1912 Olympic athlete William Ziegler Jr. bought three brownstones on East 63rd Street in 1919 and hired Sterner & Wolfe, whose Frederick J. Sterner almost certainly handled the design, to replace them. The result was a neo-Italian Renaissance palazzo, finished the following year. Plans filed in November 1919 put the cost at $200,000.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1925

    July

    Plans for a theatrical hospital in the mansion never materialize

    In July 1925 The New York Times reported that the mansion was about to become a hospital for actors and actresses, and papers were filed for a $2 million theatrical hospital. The plan never came to pass.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1928

    Norman Bailey Woolworth buys the mansion

    Ziegler gave the mansion as part payment for the Hotel Belmont in 1928, and it was resold that year to Norman Bailey Woolworth and his wife Pauline Stanbury. The couple entertained there, and Pauline was known for her work with the blind, including events for The Seeing Eye.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1949

    The New York Academy of Sciences moves into the mansion

    Norman Bailey Woolworth donated the mansion to the New York Academy of Sciences in 1949, and the organization used it as its headquarters for roughly the next fifty years.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 2005

    Leonard Blavatnik buys the vacant mansion

    Financier Leonard Blavatnik bought the mansion in 2005 for $31.25 million after the Academy of Sciences put it up for sale, reportedly as an investment rather than a home. Plans were filed in 2010 to turn it back into a private residence but were never completed. The house appears to be unoccupied, and a servants' entrance doormat still bears the NYAS letters.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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