20 5th Avenue

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.

1876
William C. Rhinelander builds the Berkeley Hotel on the site of 20 Fifth Avenue
Built in 1874-76 for William C. Rhinelander in the Parisian Neo-Grec style, the seven-story Berkeley Hotel has an elevator and paired windows set under segmental stone arches. It and the nearby Grosvenor are quiet family hotels for a wealthy, long-staying clientele. The landmark report notes that both were really apartment hotels in practice.
Source: media.villagepreservation.org
1940
Boak & Paris's Art Moderne tower replaces the Berkeley Hotel
The developers Simons Brothers demolish the Berkeley Hotel and hire Boak & Paris to design a 17-story apartment house, finished in 1940 at an estimated cost of $700,000. Its Art Moderne design carries Greek-inspired ornament, including a vertically reeded base and stylized fasces and Greek-key motifs in cast-stone bands above the third and fourteenth floors. The main entrance is on West Ninth Street.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
1971
May 26
Tenant David Malament is convicted for refusing military induction
David Malament, a 23-year-old doctoral student in mathematical logic and philosophy at Rockefeller University, lives at 20 Fifth Avenue in 1970 when he misses his induction date during the Vietnam War. A first jury deadlocks in February 1971, and a second finds him guilty a month later. He is sentenced on May 26, 1971 to six months in prison.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

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