998 Fifth Avenue

998 5th Avenue | also 1002 5th Avenue, 999 5th Avenue, 1005 5th Avenue | Upper East Side | built 1912

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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. 1910

    Spring

    Century Holding buys the Fifth Avenue corner August Belmont had held for his own mansion

    In the spring of 1910, Charles R. Fleischmann and James T. Lee, whose granddaughter would become Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, bought the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 81st Street through their Century Holding Company. They purchased it from August Belmont, who had acquired the plot as the site of a mansion. The Real Estate Record and Builders' Guide reported that the planned house would hold eighteen apartments at rents of $10,000 to $26,000, the highest in the city.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1912

    December 12

    Henry Goldman hangs a newly bought Rembrandt in his apartment gallery

    Banker Henry Goldman of Goldman Sachs and his wife Babette had moved into the building by December 1912. All the residents had impressive art collections, and the Goldmans' may have been the greatest. The New York Times reported on December 12, 1912 that Goldman had bought a Rembrandt painting of St. Bartholomew, now hanging in the gallery of his home. Wilhelm Bode, the leading European authority on Rembrandt, called it a splendid example of the artist's work.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1912

    McKim, Mead & White complete a 12-story Italian palazzo apartment house at 998 Fifth Avenue

    James T. Lee and Charles R. Fleischmann buy the plot at Fifth Avenue and 81st Street from August Belmont in spring 1910, and McKim, Mead & White, with William Richardson leading the design, produce a 12-story Italian Renaissance apartment house. The plan calls for only 18 apartments, none under 17 rooms, with rents of $10,000 to $26,000, the highest in the city. Amenities include jewelry safes and basement wine cellars. The building is completed in 1912.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1914

    May 26

    Henry Goldman's 20-year-old son elopes with a chorus girl and is sent to a Colorado ranch

    On May 26, 1914, the Evening World reported that Robert Goldman, a 20-year-old junior who had run away from Williams College, had secretly married 19-year-old chorus girl Edith Ostend in Jersey City. His parents were unhappy and sent him to a ranch in Meeker, Colorado, with an English tutor, a posting the paper called his exile. In March 1915, Henry Goldman's secretary testified in court about leading a raid on an artist's studio at 66 West 9th Street, the beginning of the end of the marriage.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1919

    April 5

    Edith Vanderbilt, widow of George Washington Vanderbilt, leases an 18-room duplex

    The Record & Guide reported on April 5, 1919 that the widow Edith Stuyvesant Dresser Vanderbilt, whose late husband was George Washington Vanderbilt, had leased a specially planned duplex of 18 rooms and five baths. Another Vanderbilt-family household was already in the building: Elliott Fitch Shepard Jr., a grandson of William Henry Vanderbilt, and his wife, who had returned to 998 Fifth in October 1918 after summering at Virginia Hot Springs.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1943

    A pig from John Jacob Astor VI's farm makes news as the 'penthouse pig'

    John Jacob Astor VI moves into a penthouse at 998 Fifth Avenue in 1943 after his wife files for divorce in Reno. On October 29 The New York Times reports that his butler took a three-week-old pig named Silvia to an animal hospital, where staff knew it as the 'penthouse pig'. An Astor spokesperson insists the undernourished animal came from his New Jersey farm and had never lived in the penthouse.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  7. 1951

    February 5

    Sylvia Green Wilks dies leaving an estate of nearly $95 million

    Sylvia Green Wilks, daughter of the eccentric multimillionaire Hetty Green and widow of Matthew Astor Wilks, dies in New York Hospital on February 5, 1951, while living at 998 Fifth Avenue. She leaves an estate valued at $94,965,229, about $1.1 billion in 2024 dollars.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  8. 1974

    The city landmarks 998 Fifth Avenue as its best Italian Renaissance apartment house

    In 1974 the Landmarks Preservation Commission designates 998 Fifth Avenue an individual landmark, describing it as the city's best apartment house in the Italian Renaissance style. The building had become a cooperative in 1953. In 1993 Archibald Cox Jr., son of the Watergate prosecutor, buys the former Astor penthouse.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  9. 1993

    August

    Archibald Cox Jr. buys John Jacob Astor VI's penthouse for $5.4 million

    In August 1993, Archibald Cox Jr., son of the Watergate prosecutor, bought the 16-room penthouse known as John Jacob Astor VI's for $5.4 million. The attorney William Condren had acquired it earlier and sold it to Cox. The building had become a cooperative in 1953, and the apartment changed hands again in 2000.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  10. 2017

    September

    William P. Lauder pays $23.5 million for a 14-room sixth-floor apartment

    In September 2017, William P. Lauder, executive chairman of the Estee Lauder Companies, bought a 14-room apartment on the building's sixth floor for $23.5 million. The building has been a cooperative since 1953.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

Nearby

All 93 buildings with stories in Upper East Side