907 Fifth Avenue

907 5th Avenue | also 905 5th Avenue, 2 East 72nd Street | Upper East Side | built 1915

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. 1916

    J. E. R. Carpenter's apartment house replaces the Burden mansion on Fifth Avenue

    Architect J. E. R. Carpenter designs a 12-story, limestone-faced apartment building at Fifth Avenue and 72nd Street, on the site of James A. Burden's 1893 mansion. Completed around 1916, it is the first apartment house to replace a private mansion on Fifth Avenue above 59th Street. Carpenter wins the American Institute of Architects' 1916 gold medal for the design.

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1917

    General Motors executive Billy Durant and his wife move into 907 Fifth Avenue

    Billy Durant, the General Motors executive, and his wife moved into the new apartment house in 1917. They were among its last early tenants, along with Henry F. Sinclair, founder of the Sinclair Oil Company. Earlier signers had included Standard Oil vice president Herbert L. Pratt, who took a 28-room apartment in December 1915, and Charles A. Stone of the American International Corporation, who leased the largest suite, with 30 rooms and seven baths.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1920

    February 26

    A jury needs under five minutes to grant the Tin Plate King's wife a divorce

    Daniel G. Reid, known as the Tin Plate King, lived at 907 Fifth Avenue with his third wife, former showgirl Mabel Carrier, who now went by Margaret. When Margaret left for a week in Atlantic City in December 1918, her dressmaker, Madame Gorgette, returned to the apartment and stayed the whole week. The jury took less than five minutes to grant Margaret the divorce, and she received $200,000 plus $30,000 a year in alimony.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1923

    A young Russian prince dies in his bedroom at 907 Fifth Avenue

    Prince Vladimir Nicolaievitch Engalitcheff, whose family fled the Bolsheviks, is living at 907 Fifth Avenue by August 1922. Within six months the 21-year-old prince is dead in his bedroom. His obituary gives heart disease as the cause, but according to author Sarah Churchwell, F. Scott Fitzgerald's January 1923 ledger records that Engalitcheff killed himself.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1926

    Huguette Clark moves into a 14-room apartment with her mother

    In 1926 Anna Clark, widow of copper tycoon William A. Clark, and her daughter Huguette move into a 14-room apartment with four bedrooms, and Anna goes on a decorating spree that November. Huguette enters society that season, marries William Macdonald Gower in a quiet Santa Barbara ceremony on August 17, 1928, separates from him in 1929 and divorces him in Reno on August 12, 1930.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1931

    July 22

    Fire guts a 23-room duplex while the family is away for the summer

    With most residents out of town, smoke was found coming from the duplex of Cornelius F. Kelley, who headed the Anaconda Copper Mining Company; his family had just left for Butte, Montana. Firemen found the foyer, music room and library burned out, with damage of $200,000. No other apartment was hurt, and building owner Samuel Herzog said the fireproof structure had passed its test.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  7. 1950

    October

    The owners begin dividing the mansion-sized apartments

    The building originally offered suites of 14 to 30 rooms, mostly one apartment to a floor, along with some duplexes and triplexes. In October 1950 the owners began a remodeling that would more than double the number of apartments, which meant dividing up those mansion-sized suites.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  8. 1963

    October 11

    Anna Clark dies in her apartment, leaving Huguette with 42 rooms

    Anna Eugenia La Chapelle Clark, widow of copper tycoon William A. Clark, died at 83 in her apartment at 907 Fifth Avenue. Her daughter Huguette stayed on, keeping the twelfth-floor suite and the two apartments that made up the eighth floor, 42 rooms in all. She spent her time painting and collecting dolls, and by then had largely dropped out of society.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  9. 1991

    Huguette Clark enters the hospital in 1991 and never returns

    After her mother dies in 1963, Huguette Clark keeps the 12th-floor apartment and the two that make up the eighth floor, 42 rooms in all. In 1991 she is admitted to Beth Israel Medical Center for skin cancer and, after treatment, chooses to stay there. Building staff keep accepting packages and mail for her as if she were home, and she dies shortly before her 105th birthday.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  10. 2012

    Huguette Clark's three apartments sell for $54.8 million after her death

    After Clark's death, her apartments were sold in 2012 and 2013. Penthouse 12W went to hedge fund manager Boaz Weinstein for $25.5 million, and 8W to financier Frederick Iseman for $22.5 million. The Prime Minister of Qatar tried to buy and merge both eighth-floor units, but the building's board refused. The last piece, 8E, sold in October 2013 for $6.8 million.

    “In total, the three apartments sold for a combined $54.8 million.”

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 93 buildings with stories in Upper East Side