Aeolian Building

689 5th Avenue | also 1 East 54th Street, 691 5th Avenue | Midtown | built 1927

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.

1927
February
The Aeolian Building opens on the former Rockefeller mansion site
Developer Charles A. Gould commissioned a neoclassical building designed by Warren & Wetmore on the site of the William Rockefeller house. A fire in April 1926 badly damaged the limestone facade during construction. The building was formally dedicated in February 1927 as the new home of the Aeolian Company.
Source: Wikipedia
1927
The Aeolian Company fills its new tower with piano and radio showrooms
Aeolian, a maker of player pianos, signed a 63-year, $12 million lease for most of the new building. It set up showrooms for its pianos and for its Radiola radios, and a hall for concerts. The company left in 1938 for half of Chickering Hall on West 57th Street.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
1930
Elizabeth Arden's Red Door Salon takes over the tower's upper floors
Elizabeth Arden's cosmetics firm took five upper floors and part of the ground floor in August 1929, and her Red Door Salon was operating there by January 1930. She bought the building from the Milne estate in 1944. By 1970 her company filled 11 of its 14 floors.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
1970
Gucci pays a record rent for the building's ground floor
After the shoe company I. Miller & Sons left the ground floor in 1970, Gucci took the corner store. Its rent of $100 per square foot was described as a record. The renovation of the facade removed Elizabeth Arden's red door from the corner.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

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