34 Gramercy Park East

also 141 East 20th Street | Gramercy | built 1883

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. 1883

    One of the city's first cooperative apartment houses is completed on Gramercy Park

    Completed in 1883, this red brick and terra-cotta Queen Anne building is the oldest co-op in New York City. Its Aesthetic Movement lobby keeps a Tiffany glass ceiling, Grueby and Minton tiles, and its original fireplace, hearth and mantel mirror. The 1988 AIA Guide to New York called its Queen Anne forms among the most spectacular in the city.

    Source: 6sqft

  2. 1883

    George W. DaCunha designs The Gramercy's Queen Anne facade

    New Jersey-based architect George W. DaCunha designs the new building in the Queen Anne style, combining brownstone and red brick with terra-cotta bands, polished granite columns and stained glass. The building has three hydraulic Otis elevators, cutting-edge technology for the time. DaCunha shapes the lobby to recall the reception hall of a private mansion.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1931

    July 4

    Singer Emma Cecilia Thursby dies at The Gramercy after nearly 50 years

    Concert and oratorio singer Emma Cecilia Thursby and her sister Ina move into the new cooperative as among its first occupants in 1883. Emma lives in her apartment for nearly half a century before dying there at the age of 86.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1958

    March 28

    The Gramercy marks its 75th anniversary with a champagne party

    About fifty residents attend a champagne party in the Garfield apartment, and The New York Times notes that the three original elevators are still in use. Actors among the tenants include Margaret Hamilton, who in The Wizard of Oz played the Wicked Witch of the West. She begins a yearly Halloween tradition of lining the hallways with carved, candle-lit pumpkins and baskets of candy and cookies.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 2002

    Jimmy Fallon starts buying apartments at The Gramercy

    Actor Jimmy Fallon buys a one-bedroom apartment on the seventh floor for about $850,000. Two years later, after his neighbor across the hall dies, he buys that unit too for $1.5 million, and keeps acquiring apartments in the building until he owns five of them by 2015.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Nearby

All 40 buildings with stories in Gramercy