432 Park Avenue
also 36 East 57th Street, 46 East 57th Street, 440 Park Avenue | Midtown | built 2016
Open on the map22 entries
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1945
Songwriter Jerome Kern collapses on the sidewalk outside the Drake Hotel
The Drake Hotel, built by Bing & Bing at Park Avenue and 56th Street, stood where 432 Park Avenue now rises. On November 5, 1945, the songwriter Jerome Kern collapsed on the sidewalk right outside the hotel. The 21-floor hotel had 495 rooms and, in its later years, drew guests ranging from Frank Sinatra to Muhammad Ali and Jimi Hendrix.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1945
The Drake Room opens with a ceramic tree and a pianist who stays six years
The Drake Hotel, which stood on the site of today's 432 Park Avenue, opened its restaurant, the Drake Room, in December 1945 as the pet project of hotel man Walter Redell. It featured a ceramic tree and Nino Schiavone as maitre d'. Redell hired the pianist Cy Walter as a featured performer, and he stayed six years. The hotel's later manager, Stanley Turkel, argues its kitchen may be where the tableside dish Steak Nino began.
Source: nydailynews.com
- 1946
Silent-film star Lillian Gish lives at the Drake Hotel for three years
From 1946 to 1949 the silent-film star Lillian Gish lived at the Drake, the hotel that stood where 432 Park Avenue now rises. Others who stayed included Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland and Jimi Hendrix, and the saloon owner Toots Shor lived there in his final years. Former manager Stanley Turkel also recalls the musicians Arthur Rubinstein and Glenn Gould and Paul Anka among the guests.
Source: nydailynews.com
- 1973
$203,000 vanishes from Led Zeppelin's safe deposit box at the Drake Hotel
The Drake Hotel, which stood on the site of 432 Park Avenue, was a favorite New York stop for touring rock bands. In July 1973 thieves took $203,000 in cash from Led Zeppelin's safe deposit box there; the money was never recovered, no thief was ever identified, and the band later sued the hotel. The British band Slade stayed at the Drake on October 6, 1973, after a gig at the New York Academy of Music.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2006
Harry Macklowe buys the Drake Hotel for $418 million as the first piece of the 432 Park site
The 21-story Drake Hotel, with 495 rooms at Park Avenue and 56th Street, dated to 1926 but had lost its celebrity clientele by the 2000s. Developer Harry Macklowe bought it in 2006 and then added neighboring parcels along 57th Street, including several watch and jewelry shops. Together with air rights, the L-shaped assemblage pushed his acquisition costs past $724 million.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2007
Holdouts on East 57th Street scuttle Macklowe's Nordstrom flagship plan
Macklowe had lined up Nordstrom for a 253,500-square-foot flagship at the base of his planned tower, but he could not assemble the whole East 57th Street frontage. Turnbull & Asser's owner used a lease option to buy 42 East 57th for $31.5 million instead of selling to Macklowe, and Jacob & Co. founder Jacob Arabo wanted $100 million for number 48. Without a connected ground floor, Nordstrom backed out and later opened its flagship at Central Park Tower.
“Jacob & Co's founder Jacob Arabo demanded $100 million for the store's building at 48 East 57th Street, a price Macklowe was unable to pay.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2008
Deutsche Bank moves to foreclose on the Drake site as Macklowe's $543 million of loans sour
Macklowe Properties paid $418 million for the Drake site and loaded it with loans of $543 million, according to city records cited by The Real Deal. In August 2008 Deutsche Bank filed to foreclose on $482 million of those loans. Later another lender, iStar Financial, offered a $224 million first-position slice of the debt at $160 million, but no buyer emerged.
Source: therealdeal.com
- 2008
Paul Manafort's CMZ Ventures agrees to buy a majority stake in the Drake site for $850 million
In 2008, with Harry Macklowe desperate for a rescue, the partnership CMZ Ventures agreed to buy a majority stake in the site for $850 million. The C stood for Arthur Cohen; the M and Z were Paul Manafort and Brad Zackson. They planned a 65-story hotel and condominium tower with a private club and a mall. A letter from the CEO of Ukrainian gas tycoon Dmitry Firtash's company promised $112 million in equity and a $25 million deposit went into escrow, but the equity never came together and CIM Group bought the defaulted debt instead.
Source: therealdeal.com
- 2010
CIM Group agrees to pay $305 million for the stalled Park Avenue site and keeps Macklowe as a partner
The 2008 financial crisis left Macklowe unable to repay a Deutsche Bank loan backed by the site, and a proposed $850 million purchase by the investment group CMZ Ventures collapsed when its financing fell through. CIM Group stepped in during January 2010, agreeing to pay $305 million for the entire assemblage with Macklowe remaining involved. Citigroup's private bank brought in a further $415 million from wealthy individual investors.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2011
Rafael Viñoly designs the tower as a lattice of white concrete with open mechanical floors
Viñoly was hired in mid-2011, and he and Macklowe, longtime friends, bickered over details such as whether to add a pinnacle. The tower's skin is a grid of white concrete cast on site. Every twelve floors an open two-story mechanical level interrupts the grid, so that wind can pass through the building.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2013
Sales open with listings from $20 million and a $1 million film featuring Philippe Petit
Sales launched in March 2013 with prices from $20 million to $82.5 million, and the developers said over a third of the units were already in contract. The sales gallery in the General Motors Building screened a four-minute film that Macklowe spent $1 million to make. It follows a young woman from an English country house to a Learjet and her new home, with the high-wire artist Philippe Petit hanging from a helicopter.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2014
432 Park Avenue tops out and is completed in 2015 as the tallest residential building in the world
A topping-out ceremony on October 10, 2014, marked the tower reaching its full height, after it had passed the 1,000-foot mark that June. Reports say it was officially completed on December 23, 2015, at 1,396 feet, making it the world's tallest residential building and the third-tallest in the United States.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2015
A guardrail falls from the 81st floor of 432 Park and construction stops
In January 2015, work on the tower was suspended after an eight-foot metal guardrail from a construction elevator came down from the 81st floor, Crain's New York Business reported. Gizmodo noted earlier incidents: in September 2014 a retaining wall on the 80th floor blew out and about four yards of concrete rained onto cars and property below, and in July a pair of wire clippers fell and nearly hit a person. City penalties for such violations ran only $5,000 to $10,000.
Source: gizmodo.com
- 2015
Wired reports that a Josef Hoffmann wastebasket inspired the tower's grid
Wired reported in June 2015 that the grid-like facade of 432 Park came from a metal trash can designed by Josef Hoffmann of the Wiener Werkstätte, an elegant piece that now sells for $225. Architect Rafael Viñoly cited Hoffmann in a lecture, and developer Harry Macklowe repeated the point at a December lecture. Critics had already attacked the $1.3 billion tower; Justin Davidson of New York magazine said it looked like stacked cubbyhole units.
Source: wired.com
- 2016
Architect Rafael Viñoly admits "screw-ups" in his own 432 Park Avenue tower
At a talk hosted by the brokerage Douglas Elliman in the building in May 2016, Viñoly reportedly said the tower had a couple of screw-ups. The first, he told the New York Post, was the windows: each is ten feet square but thickly framed inside, which eats floor space, and he blamed the framing on developer Harry Macklowe. He also faulted the interior design and layout by Deborah Berke Partners, including where the bathrooms sit. Viñoly later sent Dezeen a letter apologising for the comments.
Source: dezeen.com
- 2016
A Saudi retail magnate closes on the tower's penthouse for $87.7 million
On September 9, 2016, the Saudi retail magnate Fawaz Al Hokair closed on the tower's penthouse unit for $87.7 million, about $10,623 per square foot, according to The Real Deal as relayed by the New York Daily News. CIM Group, a co-developer, reportedly lent the buyer $56 million. At the end of August a three-bedroom condo had also closed for $28 million, with the buyer believed to be Maher Mikati of M1 Fashion.
Source: nydailynews.com
- 2017
Linda Macklowe sues after Harry shrinks her 78th-floor unit and enlarges his
While the couple's $2 billion divorce was under way, Linda Macklowe sued in September 2017 over unit 78A at 432 Park. The couple had agreed in 2013 to buy adjacent apartments on the 78th floor, hers for $14.4 million with a $2.16 million deposit. After the developers delayed her closing four times, her suit says, they filed plans in June that cut her unit to 1,766 square feet from 2,663 and gave the difference to Harry's neighboring unit. A spokesperson for Harry pointed to her divorce papers, which said she did not want to live there.
Source: therealdeal.com
- 2018
Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez buy a 4,000-square-foot apartment, then sell it within a year
In 2018 Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez purchased a 4,000-square-foot apartment at 432 Park for $15.3 million and sold it about a year later, the New York Times reported. The Times said the tower drew many of the world's richest and most powerful people, nearly all of whom bought through shell companies that hid their names.
Source: The New York Times
- 2018
A sprinkler discharge and two water incidents in 2018 cost the building $9.7 million in covered losses
Leaks hit the tower twice in November 2018: a blown flange on the 60th floor, then a water line failure on the 74th floor that took two of the four residential elevators out of service for weeks. The New York Times reported in 2021 that a sprinkler discharge and two water incidents that year together cost the building roughly $9.7 million in insured losses, per a letter from the residential board of managers. A resident elected to the condo board said insurance costs rose 300 percent in two years, and annual common charges jumped nearly 40 percent in 2019.
Source: The New York Times
- 2019
Harry Macklowe marks his wedding with a 42-by-24-foot portrait on the tower
On March 7, 2019, Harry Macklowe and his new wife, Patricia Landeau, marked their wedding by hanging a 42-by-24-foot polyester-mesh portrait of the couple on the northwest corner of 432 Park. It was based on a photograph taken by Studio Harcourt in Paris. About 200 guests were invited that evening to a reception on the 78th floor, which was gutted and turned into a ballroom, the same floor where Macklowe and his ex-wife had once planned side-by-side condos.
Source: therealdeal.com
- 2019
High wind stalls an elevator and traps a resident for 85 minutes
On the evening of October 31, 2019, a management email later cited by the New York Times said a high-wind condition stopped an elevator and left a resident entrapped for an hour and 25 minutes. An engineer told the paper that wind sway can slap the cables in an elevator shaft and cause slowdowns or shutdowns. Other residents reported creaking, banging and clicking noises, and a trash chute that sounded like a bomb.
Source: The New York Times
- 2021
The condo board sues the developers over alleged design defects after residents report leaks and noise
Residents had complained of leaks, cracks and mechanical problems, and in September 2021 the condo board sued CIM Group and Macklowe Properties, citing an engineer's count of about 1,500 flaws. Before Labor Day the entire building was emptied for two days for electrical repairs. CIM responded that the complaints were exaggerated and typical of new developments.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- 432 Park AvenueWikipedia
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