55 Central Park West

Lincoln Square | built 1930

Open on the map11 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. 1922

    A 10-room suite in the Courtney hotel, later razed for the tower, rents for up to $4,500 a year

    Before 55 Central Park West, two Beaux Arts resident hotels, The Courtney and The Georgian Court, occupied the lot at the southwest corner where 66th Street meets Central Park West. Their residents lived in spacious suites; in 1922 a 10-room, three-bath apartment at the Courtney rented for as much as $4,500 a year. By the late 1920s smaller buildings like these were being razed for Art Deco apartment houses, and Schwartz & Gross's tower rose on their site in 1930.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1930

    Fall

    Schwartz & Gross's Art Deco tower opens at 55 Central Park West

    Developers Victor Earle and John Calhoun complete 55 Central Park West in the fall of 1930, a 19-story, 115-unit Art Deco building designed by Schwartz & Gross on the site of two earlier Beaux Arts hotels, the Courtney and the Georgian Court. Tenants line up to sign leases months before it opens, and it is 75 percent leased by July.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1932

    August 18

    A resident of the 17th floor is found dead in the rear courtyard

    At 6 a.m. on August 18, 1932, doorman Stanley Dawson heard a thud in the rear courtyard and found Edward R. Brevoort, 60, in his pajamas beside a window screen. Brevoort lived in an eight-room apartment on the 17th floor while his wife spent the summer on Cape Cod. Police described him as having felt dizzy, stepped to the window for air and toppled out, an account the author suggests may have been shaped by families' denial of suicide.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1932

    Bandleader Rudy Vallee moves into 55 Central Park West

    Singer Rudy Vallee and actress Fay Webb move into 55 Central Park West after marrying in 1932. That September, Vallee is ticketed for speeding at 45 miles per hour in Rye and forfeits $15 in bail. Reports of marital trouble surface within a year of the wedding, and Vallee sues for divorce in 1935.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1934

    March

    Opera star Lily Pons, a resident, hands her pet jaguar over to the Bronx Zoo

    Soprano Lily Pons lived at 55 Central Park West in the 1930s, and her pet was a Brazilian jaguar named Ita, a gift when the cat was three months old. Ita went along on her trips, riding in railroad cars and staying in hotel rooms, but began snarling at visitors. In March 1934 Pons gave her to the Bronx Zoo; Ita rode there in the front seat of the limousine, and Pons told the keeper the cat ate only raw meat, chopped, twice a day.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1944

    June 10

    A 77-year-old resident sells war bonds door to door, starting with her own building

    In June 1944 Rae Simon, a 77-year-old widow living at 55 Central Park West, began an advance campaign for the Fifth War Loan and had already sold $4,000 in bonds. She planned to solicit every tenant in her building, writing ahead to arrange appointments and promising to stay no more than five minutes. One neighbor bought a $5,000 bond as her birthday gift; her largest sale was $10,000, and a year later she had passed $1 million.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  7. 1945

    55 Central Park West begins converting to a cooperative

    In 1945 the owners begin converting about 26 of the building's 115 rental apartments into cooperative suites. Tenants sue, and that September the federal Office of Price Administration rules that 80 percent of a co-op's buyers must be former tenants, barring the owners from evicting those who decline to buy.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  8. 1983

    Calvin Klein buys composer Jerry Herman's penthouse and puts a hot tub on the roof

    Composer Jerry Herman bought a top-floor apartment in the 1970s, removed walls and installed the Mason & Hamlin grand piano on which he wrote the score to Mame. When Calvin Klein visited in 1983 he was so taken with it that he offered $1 million at once, and Herman accepted. Klein then added a rooftop hot tub, which brought him into conflict with the co-op board.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  9. 1984

    Ghostbusters turns 55 Central Park West into 'Spook Central'

    Filmmakers choose 55 Central Park West, their second choice, as the exterior of the fictional Shandor Building for the 1984 film Ghostbusters. The real building lacks the towering upper section the script calls for, so the production adds eight extra stories and a rooftop temple through matte paintings.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  10. 1989

    The penthouse passes from Klein to Geffen to Barish and back to Klein

    In 1989 Klein listed his penthouse for $3.9 million. Producer Keith Barish signed a contract and a $390,000 deposit check, then changed his mind, and Klein's friend David Geffen bought it for $4.3 million without ever moving in. A year later Geffen sold it to Barish for $4.6 million; Barish never moved in either, bought Marsha Mason's next-door apartment, and finally sold both back to Klein, who stripped the space to its load-bearing walls.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  11. 2003

    The building plays the home of Buddy's human family in the film Elf

    The 2003 Christmas film Elf uses 55 Central Park West as the home of Buddy's human family. The building is a 19-floor cooperative on the Upper West Side designed by Schwartz & Gross. Its screen fame began earlier, with the 1984 film Ghostbusters.

    “The building also appears in the 2003 Christmas film Elf, as the home of Buddy's human family.”

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 48 buildings with stories in Lincoln Square