778 Park Avenue
also 780 Park Avenue, 61 East 73rd Street | Upper East Side | 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
Rosario Candela dresses 778 Park Avenue with bold ornament at its corners and limestone base
Rosario Candela designed the 18-story 778 Park Avenue for developer Charles Newmark, completing it in 1931 as one of the few prewar towers on the avenue to rise above 15 stories. Robert A. M. Stern and his coauthors saw it as a smaller English Renaissance partner to Candela's 770 Park Avenue, with heavy ornament at the quoined corners and a limestone base. Together the two towered buildings formed a gateway toward Central Park.
Source: cityrealty.com
- 1931
A burst water main floods the steam room and elevator pits of the new 778 Park Avenue
In December 1931, a 48-inch water main burst at Madison Avenue and 73rd Street, and the water poured into 778 Park Avenue, which had been completed only a month earlier. The New York Times reported water five feet deep in the steam room, eleven feet deep in the elevator pits and four feet deep in the storeroom, and elevator service stopped completely.
Source: cityrealty.com
- 1931
The new building is among four Park Avenue apartment houses foreclosed on in 1931
In 1931 four Park Avenue apartment buildings went into foreclosure, among them the new and only partly occupied 778 Park Avenue, according to a Christopher Gray column in the New York Times. Gray added that such foreclosures continued through the 1930s and into the mid-1940s. By 1945, 52 of the 105 large apartment houses on that part of Park Avenue had been foreclosed or taken back by their lenders.
Source: cityrealty.com
- 1933
Gary Cooper marries Veronica Balfe at her mother's apartment in the building
On December 15, 1933, the actor Gary Cooper married Veronica Balfe at her mother's home in 778 Park Avenue. The couple had first meant to marry at the Waldorf Astoria hotel, and the move to the apartment was probably meant to keep the event out of public view. The same Wikipedia article notes that the building's ground-floor maisonette entertained legions of the city's elite.
“Veronica Cooper (née Balfe) married actor Gary Cooper on December 15, 1933, at her mother's home in the very exclusive coop…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1983
778 Park Avenue receives Friends of the Upper East Side's first annual Excellence in Conservation Award
In 1983 the civic group Friends of the Upper East Side presented its first annual Excellence in Conservation Award to 778 Park Avenue. The award recognized the 1931 Rosario Candela apartment house, with its four-story limestone base, a half century after it was built.
“In 1983 it won the first annual Excellence in Conservation Award from Friends of the Upper East Side.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2008
Vera Wang's 14-room apartment sells for $33.6 million
The New York Times reported on February 8, 2008, that Yonina Davidson and her husband had bought fashion designer Vera Wang's 14-room apartment at 778 Park Avenue for $33.6 million. The building's residents have also included Brooke Astor and the television executive Roone Arledge.
Source: cityrealty.com
Further reading
- 778 Park AvenueWikipedia
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