834 Fifth Avenue

834 5th Avenue | also 835 5th Avenue, 833 5th Avenue, 1 East 64th Street | Upper East Side | built 1930

Open on the map10 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. 1931

    Banker Hugh Baker buys both top-floor triplexes in the new Candela tower

    The top three floors were laid out as two triplexes, and both went to Hugh B. Baker, a banker and stockbroker, who lived there with his wife Mabel and a live-in nurse. The Times said the 15th floor was meant for entertaining and described a living room of 21 by 33 feet with a small conservatory, a dining room of 19 by 27 feet and a sweeping stair linking all three levels.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1931

    October 1

    Rosario Candela's limestone tower rises on the Haggin mansion site

    Developer Anthony Campagna hires architect Rosario Candela to design a 14-story limestone apartment house on the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 64th Street, where James B. Haggin's mansion stood until its demolition in 1930. The building opens on October 1, 1931, with 20 apartments, most already sold, ranging from 9 to 17 rooms. Two maisonettes have private entrances on Fifth Avenue, and the building also has a private garden of 2,000 square feet designed by Ferruccio Vitale.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1931

    Margaret Haggin reportedly negotiates her way back into a building on her old lot

    Margaret Haggin, widow of James B. Haggin, reluctantly sells the family mansion to developer Anthony Campagna in 1930 after holding out for months. She reportedly negotiates a clause in the sale contract guaranteeing her an apartment in the new building, and she is among its first residents in 1931. Her neighbors include families named Berwind, Burden, DeWitt, Pratt and Reid, and banker Hugh B. Baker buys both top-floor triplexes.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1946

    November

    Laurance Rockefeller buys the entire building

    Laurance S. Rockefeller buys the Baker triplex on the top floors in November 1946 and the whole building along with it. His wife Mary hosts a White Elephant Tea at the apartment in 1962 to collect donations for the Brick Presbyterian Church fair. In 2005 Rupert Murdoch buys the Rockefeller triplex from the estate for $44 million.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1962

    Nelson Rockefeller stays in his brother Laurance's apartment after separating from his wife

    Nelson Rockefeller and his wife, Mary Todhunter Clark, had a 20-room apartment at 810 Fifth Avenue, but the marriage strained enough that they separated in fall 1961. A newspaper noted on January 26, 1962 that the governor had been staying at the Executive Mansion in Albany and at 834 Fifth Avenue, in the Manhattan apartment of his brother Laurance.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1963

    Anne Ford buys an apartment here after ending her 23-year marriage to Henry Ford II

    The Daily News reported on August 5, 1963 that Anne Ford had bought an apartment at 834 Fifth after 23 years of marriage, with Elizabeth Arden, Jessie Woolworth Donahue and Laurance Rockefeller among her new neighbors. While it was being decorated she stayed at the Carlyle. Reports said Henry took their post-Impressionist paintings and she kept the French 18th-century furniture.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  7. 1976

    December 5

    Burglars steal about $250,000 in jewelry from a maisonette at 834 Fifth Avenue

    On December 5, 1976, the maisonette home of Texaco executive Kerryn King and his wife Shirley is found looted of roughly $250,000 in jewelry. The couple had left for Southampton that day, and Shirley's daughter discovers the break-in that evening when she stops by to pick up clothes.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  8. 2005

    Rupert Murdoch buys the Rockefeller triplex for $44 million

    In 2005 Rupert Murdoch paid $44 million to the Rockefeller estate for the top-floor triplex, whose uppermost level has four bedrooms, one at the corner with a fireplace. Eight years later, on November 19, 2013, the New York Times reported that Murdoch and Wendi Deng Murdoch were working out the last details of a divorce settlement, with the co-op one of the items in dispute.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  9. 2015

    March

    Leonard Blavatnik buys Woody Johnson's duplex for $77.5 million

    In March 2015 the owner of the New York Jets, Woody Johnson, sold his duplex on the 11th and 12th floors to the billionaire Leonard Blavatnik for $77.5 million. Daytonian in Manhattan mentions it right after noting that the sale of the Murdoch apartment had made headlines only briefly, for its price.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  10. 2019

    October

    John Gutfreund's 20-room duplex sells for $53 million after a $120 million listing

    The financier John Gutfreund died in early 2016, and in April his 20-room duplex was put on the market for $120 million. It lingered unsold for years and finally sold in October 2019 for $53 million, less than half the asking price, which disappointed his estate.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

Nearby

All 93 buildings with stories in Upper East Side