The Wilbraham

284 5th Avenue | also 1 West 30th Street | Midtown South | built 1890

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. 1890

    May

    The Wilbraham opens as one of Fifth Avenue's first bachelor apartment hotels

    Scottish jewelry merchant William Moir opened the Wilbraham in May 1890 on a site he had assembled from townhouses at 282-284 Fifth Avenue. Designed by brothers David and John Jardine, the nine-story building held 42 bachelor flats, each a bedroom and parlor with a private bathroom but no kitchen; residents dined together in a communal dining room on the top floor.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1908

    January

    China importer John J. Gibbons buys the Wilbraham for $1 million

    John J. Gibbons, head of the china and glass importer Davis Collamore & Co., which had leased space in the Wilbraham since it opened, purchased the building outright in January 1908 for $1 million. Collamore remained a ground-floor retail tenant for roughly another decade.

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1932

    Actor Wilton Lackaye dies at the Wilbraham

    Stage and film actor Wilton Lackaye died at the Wilbraham in 1932. Unverified stories also placed performer Lillian Russell and businessman Diamond Jim Brady among the building's early residents.

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 1934

    MetLife takes over the Wilbraham and adds kitchens to its bachelor flats

    After the building's owners defaulted on taxes, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company took over the Wilbraham in 1934 and renovated the old bachelor flats, finally installing kitchens with gas stoves, likely the first on the midtown stretch of Fifth Avenue to have them.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 20 buildings with stories in Midtown South