Fifth Avenue Hotel (1926)

24 5th Avenue | Greenwich Village | built 1926

Open on the map4 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. 1840

    February 24

    A costume ball at the Brevoort mansion starts a fashion for lavish society balls

    The Greek Revival mansion that Henry Brevoort commissioned in 1834, which stood on this site before the present building, hosted a costume ball on February 24, 1840. Former mayor Philip Hone estimated about 500 guests, who came as fox hunters, Greek gods and goddesses, and other characters. Days earlier he had written that nothing else was being talked about among fashionable New Yorkers. Ephemeral New York credits the party with starting a fad for grand balls, later seen in those of Mrs. Astor and Alva Vanderbilt.

    Source: Ephemeral New York

  2. 1926

    August 1

    Emery Roth's Fifth Avenue Hotel opens on the site of the Brevoort mansion

    The New York Fifth Avenue Hotel Corp. bought the Brevoort mansion in 1925 and hired Emery Roth to design a 15-story residential hotel in its place. The building opened on August 1, 1926, with variegated beige brick above a stone base and Spanish Renaissance details in terra cotta. Its suites had one to three rooms and no kitchens, with maid service included and meals available in the in-house dining room.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1966

    March 17

    Labor leader David Dubinsky retires as union president while living at the hotel

    David Dubinsky, head of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, and his wife Emma were living at 24 Fifth Avenue by 1966. He retired from the union on March 17 that year at age 74. Emma died in their apartment on December 25, 1974. Other residents of the era included film critic Philip T. Hartung and author Ben Lucien Burman with his illustrator wife Alice Caddy.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1981

    Tenants challenge the building's status as a hotel and seek rent-stabilization protection

    After Daniel and Nathan Brodsky and other investors took over the building in 1975, maid and linen service became optional and rents rose repeatedly. In August 1981 The New York Times reported that tenants were disputing the hotel classification, arguing that they should be covered by the rent-stabilization law as apartment tenants. A compromise came on August 15, 1983, when new rules limited rent increases for long-term tenants in rent-stabilized hotel rooms.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

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