660 Fifth Avenue

666 5th Avenue | also 660C 5th Avenue, 6 West 53rd Street, 660B 5th Avenue | Midtown | built 1958

Open on the map15 entries

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1883

    Alva Vanderbilt's costume ball opens the Petit Chateau to 600 to 800 guests

    The mansion that stood on this lot, called the Petit Chateau, was finished in 1883 and Alva Vanderbilt promptly threw a costume ball in it. The New-York Tribune estimated that 600 to 800 people attended and called it as lovely as any such party the city had seen. Cornelius Vanderbilt came as Louis XVI. Outside, a crowd gathered on Fifth Avenue and West 52nd Street to watch the carriages arrive, and police held it back.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1905

    Stanford White's firm starts a second Vanderbilt mansion next to the Petit Chateau

    William K. Vanderbilt gave his son William Jr. the brownstones at 666 and 668 Fifth Avenue, and McKim, Mead & White built a new house there beside the Petit Chateau, with construction starting in April 1905. Stanford White led the project and blended it with Richard Morris Hunt's chateau, though with more French Gothic detail. White did not live to see it done: he was murdered in June 1906, a year before the house was finished.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1908

    February 13

    A burglar slips into the Vanderbilt mansion and leaves with the silver

    On February 13, 1908 a thief named James Anderson, who also went by Eleazur Hardy, got into William K. Vanderbilt's mansion at 660 Fifth Avenue. He walked out with about $230 of Mrs. Vanderbilt's silver. Anderson had been sent to the Elmira Reformatory in 1899 after burglaries at the homes of J. Pierpont Morgan and Charles T. Yerkes. He was convicted of the Vanderbilt theft on March 10.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1911

    March 15

    An injured seamstress is carried into the Vanderbilt vestibule as the family leaves for the opera

    On March 15, 1911 a car hit seamstress Mary Cunningham on Fifth Avenue and sped off. Two men carried her to the steps of the Vanderbilt mansion and, with a family member's permission, into the vestibule while a Vanderbilt limousine was called for to take her to a hospital. Meanwhile three other Vanderbilt limousines arrived to take the family to the opera, and a servant rolled out a red carpet. Anne Vanderbilt and her party walked around the injured woman to their cars.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1919

    June 11

    A hoax burglar alarm brings a police cordon around the Vanderbilt house

    Police were told at 2 a.m. on June 11, 1919 that burglars had entered William K. Vanderbilt Jr.'s mansion at 666 Fifth Avenue, which was closed for the summer. Officers surrounded the block and detectives searched the house, drawing a crowd from uptown hotels. The butler learned of the break-in only when police rang the bell. It proved to be a prank, and an annoyed police captain then raided Broadway spots and questioned about thirty people.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1926

    January 7

    Consuelo Vanderbilt marries Earl E. T. Smith in her mother's Fifth Avenue house

    Consuelo Vanderbilt, daughter of William K. Vanderbilt Jr., was married on January 7, 1926, in the afternoon, to Earl E. T. Smith at the family's mansion at 666 Fifth Avenue. The New York Times, which did not hide that her parents were estranged, placed the ceremony at the home of her mother. The small wedding had no attendants. The couple then moved into a house on East 64th Street that was a gift from her father.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  7. 1926

    The W. K. Vanderbilt mansion on this site is sold and demolished for an office building

    William K. Vanderbilt and his wife Alva moved into a French Renaissance-style mansion at Fifth Avenue and 52nd Street in the early 1880s. Richard Morris Hunt designed it, with Alva helping plan it. The house was sold to a real estate developer in 1926, then demolished and replaced by an office building.

    Source: Ephemeral New York

  8. 1956

    A steelworker-cartoonist and thank-you geraniums brighten the construction fence

    While the Tishman Building went up, the construction drew a lot of interest. Steelworker Larry Weinmann, a former cartoonist, drew cartoons and pictures of the finished tower on the construction fence. Boxes of geraniums with thank-you notes appeared outside the worksite in 1956, and the building wore a papier-mache Santa Claus that Christmas and Easter decorations the next spring.

    “Steelworker Larry Weinmann, a former cartoonist, put cartoon decorations and depictions of the completed building onto the construction fence…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  9. 1957

    November 25

    The Tishman Building opens as a 41-story aluminum-clad tower

    Developer Tishman Realty & Construction built a 41-story, 483-foot office tower designed by Carson & Lundin at a cost of $40 million. Its aluminum curtain wall covered 8 acres, and the lobby included a waterfall wall by Isamu Noguchi. Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. led the opening ceremony on November 25, 1957.

    Source: Wikipedia

  10. 1958

    Stouffer's opens the Top of the Sixes, the first of its penthouse restaurants

    Stouffer's began its line of 'Top of' penthouse restaurants in 1958 with the Top of the Sixes, at the summit of 666 Fifth Avenue. The chain grew to sixteen such rooms, including Top of the Hub in Boston, Top of the Flame in Detroit and Top of the Town. By then the company had moved beyond cafeterias into casual and destination restaurants.

    Source: Wikipedia

  11. 1959

    Shirley Clarke's documentary Skyscraper follows the tower's construction

    Filmmaker Shirley Clarke made Skyscraper in 1959, a documentary about the building of 666 Fifth Avenue that she described as a musical comedy about putting up a skyscraper. Critics praised it on release, and it was nominated for an Academy Award. In a 1964 essay on camp, Susan Sontag later used the Tishman Building as an example of kitsch that lacked the love that makes camp.

    Source: Wikipedia

  12. 2002

    A Citigroup logo replaces the 666 on the tower's side

    The 666 numerals on the side of the tower came down in 2002 and a Citigroup logo went up, after the bank became its largest tenant. Signs like that would normally be banned in Manhattan, but a grandfather clause covered it because the original 666 sign predated the ban. Some groups, including the Municipal Art Society, did not mind, while architect Robert A. M. Stern criticized the change. The three 6 digits were kept in storage.

    Source: Wikipedia

  13. 2007

    January

    Kushner Properties buys the tower for a record $1.8 billion

    Kushner Properties agreed in January 2007 to buy the building for $1.8 billion, at the time the highest price ever paid for a single office building in the United States. The facade was later replaced with glass panels in a renovation designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox between 2020 and 2022.

    Source: Wikipedia

  14. 2016

    August 2

    Paul Manafort meets Konstantin Kilimnik at the building's Grand Havana Room

    On August 2, 2016, Paul Manafort and Rick Gates met Konstantin Kilimnik at the Grand Havana Room, a private cigar club in the building. Manafort gave Kilimnik polling data at the meeting, which drew the attention of the Mueller investigation.

    Source: Wikipedia

  15. 2017

    Kushner hires Zaha Hadid to redesign the tower as a $12 billion skyscraper

    After talks with the Chinese insurer Anbang fell through, Kushner Companies hired Zaha Hadid Architects to redevelop 666 Fifth Avenue. The design would have kept the steel frame and added forty stories for a height of 1,400 feet, with a glass facade, a vertical mall on nine floors, an 11-story hotel and luxury condominiums. It was meant to open by 2025. Kushner could not find equity partners or lenders, and the plan was dropped.

    “Hadid designed a $12 billion skyscraper on the site…”

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 178 buildings with stories in Midtown