The Brentmore
88 Central Park West | Lincoln Square | built 1910
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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.
- 1910
Schwartz & Gross's Brentmore apartments open on Central Park West
The Akron Building Co. builds the Brentmore at 88 Central Park West, finishing the 12-story apartment house at the southwest corner of 69th Street in 1910. Architects Schwartz & Gross blend Neo-Renaissance and Beaux-Arts styles in brick, stone and terra cotta.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1915
Resident Isabel Bernheimer marries Brentmore doorman Jimmy Murray over her family's objections
Isabel Bernheimer, daughter of a Brentmore stockbroker, married Jimmy Murray, a young Irish doorman at the building, in March 1915. Her mother had hired a lawyer to stop the match, and her great-uncle offered Murray a 100-to-1 bet that it would not last four months. Murray was fired, which Daytonian in Manhattan attributes to the Bernheimers' influence, and the couple moved in with his aunt in Brooklyn, with Isabel saying her family planned to cut her off.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1918
A Brentmore resident's son becomes a World War I flying ace
Jacques Michael Swaab, whose family lives at the Brentmore, enters the army in June 1917. On September 10, 1918, he shoots down three German aircraft in one flight over enemy lines, and he later ranks among the top living American aces.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1920
Elevator operators stage an inside burglary of two Brentmore apartments
In June 1920 three of the four elevator operators plotted a break-in at the Bernheimers' apartment and that of retired merchant Henry Schwabacker, sending the fourth operator to the basement so accomplices could enter unseen. The thieves ransacked the apartments and carried off a 400-pound safe. Detectives suspected an inside job, and one operator confessed. The unopened safe turned up at a West 49th Street club, and police found suitcases of furs, clothing and jewelry that they put at $50,000.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1953
Celeste Holm moves into the Brentmore, perhaps its first entertainment celebrity
Stage and screen star Celeste Holm took an apartment at the Brentmore in 1953, and may have been the first entertainment celebrity to live in the building. Daytonian in Manhattan notes that the Brentmore went on to attract other well-known residents, among them Clive Davis, Sting and Robert De Niro.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1959
The Brentmore converts to a co-operative
In 1959 the Brentmore was converted to a co-operative. Schwartz & Gross had designed it for the Akron Building Company, with seven- to nine-room apartments, three to a floor, and passenger elevators that opened directly into them.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1970
Record producer Clive Davis buys a five-bedroom apartment for $55,000 and hosts parties
Around 1970 the Columbia/CBS executive Clive Davis and his wife Janet moved into a five-bedroom Brentmore apartment, for which he later wrote that he paid $55,000. In his 2012 autobiography Davis said the elevator opened straight into the apartment, and the huge living room facing the park became the site of many parties. He estimated spending another $10,000 to fix it up.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 2012
A lint-clogged dryer starts a fire in Robert De Niro's fourth-floor apartment
On June 7, 2012, a dryer clogged with lint caused a fire in the fourth-floor apartment of actor Robert De Niro and his wife Grace Hightower, who had bought the unit six years earlier. An FDNY battalion chief said the damage was limited to three or four rooms there, plus a few apartments on the floor above.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 2012
Actress Celeste Holm dies in her Brentmore apartment
Actress Celeste Holm takes an apartment in the Brentmore in 1953 and lives there for the rest of her life. She dies in her apartment in 2012 at age 95, the same year a fire damages the fourth-floor apartment of fellow resident Robert De Niro on June 7.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
Further reading
- The BrentmoreWikipedia
- The 1910 Brentmore -- 88 Central Park WestDaytonian in Manhattan
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