River House
435 East 52nd Street | also 444 East 53rd Street, 450 East 53rd Street, 440 East 53rd Street | Turtle Bay | built 1931
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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.
- 1931
River House opens in 1931 with a pier for residents' yachts
William Lawrence Bottomley designed this 26-story Art Deco cooperative, built in 1931 where a cigar factory once stood. It had 78 apartments, described as having 12 rooms, six baths and two fireplaces. A pier let residents dock their yachts, an amenity lost when the FDR Drive was built.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1939
Customs agents raid a River House penthouse and seize jewelry, gowns and lingerie
In 1939 federal customs agents searched the River House penthouse of Mrs. James C. Ayer, the widow of a surgeon and painter, after an informer told them where to look. They took jewelry, gowns and lingerie that they suspected had been smuggled. The Times headline put the value of the seized attire at $25,000.
Source: huffpost.com
- 1941
A Depression-era mortgage default sends River House into foreclosure
Hit by the Great Depression, River House shareholders defaulted on their mortgage interest payments, and a court ordered the building sold in foreclosure in July 1941. The building changed hands again in 1948, when Tishman Realty & Construction bought it and proposed splitting the original 78 large apartments into 170 smaller units. Tenants organized and hired lawyers to fight the plan and keep their apartments intact.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1948
River House tenants buy the building as a cooperative to avoid eviction
The New York Times reported on August 11, 1948 that the tenants of River House had bought the building on a cooperative basis. They did so to save themselves from eviction and to keep the structure from being remodeled into small suites.
Source: huffpost.com
- 1954
FM radio inventor Edwin Howard Armstrong dies after leaping from his 13th-floor window
Edwin Howard Armstrong, the inventor of FM radio, died on January 31, 1954 after diving from the 13th-floor window of his apartment at River House. Michael Henry Adams writes that his widow appealed a court ruling against him and by 1967 had won a substantial award, which established him as the true inventor of FM radio.
Source: huffpost.com
- 1980
The co-op board rejects Gloria Vanderbilt's application
River House's co-op board was long known for turning away applicants who failed its strict financial requirements or whose comings and goings might draw publicity. It rejected heiress Gloria Vanderbilt in 1980. Vanderbilt, then in a relationship with African American singer Bobby Short, accused the board of racism, while the board said it had judged her on her merits. Richard Nixon, Joan Crawford and Diane Keaton are among others alleged to have been turned down.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2021
The co-op board and the River Club agree a new long-term lease after years of talks
The River Club, a private club that occupies parts of the building's lower levels and counts a little over half of the building's shareholders among its roughly 900 members, spent several years in talks about buying the space it occupies. In 2021 the co-op board and the club instead concluded a new long-term lease, which secured the club's future.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- River House (New York City)Wikipedia
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