810 Fifth Avenue is a luxury residential housing cooperative on the

Upper East Side The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the wes ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

Overview

The building is on the northeast corner of East 62nd Street, across the street from the

Knickerbocker Club The Knickerbocker Club (known informally as The Knick) is a gentlemen's club in New York City that was founded in 1871. It is considered to be the most exclusive club in the United States and one of the most aristocratic gentlemen's clubs in th ...

. Designed by J. E. R. Carpenter for the Bricken Construction Company, it was built in 1926 on the site of a house owned by Mrs.

Hamilton Fish Hamilton Fish (August 3, 1808September 7, 1893) was an American politician who served as the 16th Governor of New York from 1849 to 1850, a United States Senator from New York from 1851 to 1857 and the 26th United States Secretary of State ...

. It is a 13-story, limestone-clad building in

Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...

-palazzo style. It is one of the most expensive addresses in the city. The building contains only 12 apartments: a ground floor maisonette, 10 full-floor apartments, and a multi-floor penthouse. Each full-floor apartment has of space, four bedrooms and four servants' rooms.Luxury apartment houses of Manhattan: an illustrated history, Andrew Alpern, Dover Publications, 1992, pp. 110-111. The elevator opens into a private entrance foyer on each floor. Every apartment has windows overlooking

Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated ...

. The detailing of the exterior in "elegant... limestone-clad, Italian Renaissance-palazzo style" is carried into the lobby, which features bronze torchieres and an elaborate carved plasterwork ceiling. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' once speculated that 810 might be the only apartment building in the city to have "more employees than apartments."

Notable residents

Nelson Rockefeller lived in a triplex apartment with his first wife Mary Todhunter Clark. The 30-room apartment was renovated for the Rockefellers by

Wallace Harrison Wallace Kirkman Harrison (September 28, 1895 – December 2, 1981) was an American architect. Harrison started his professional career with the firm of Corbett, Harrison & MacMurray, participating in the construction of Rockefeller Center. He i ...

and decorated by

Jean-Michel Frank Jean-Michel Frank (28 February 1895 – 8 March 1941) was a French interior designer known for minimalist interiors decorated with plain-lined but sumptuous furniture made of luxury materials, such as shagreen, mica, and intricate straw marque ...

. With his first wife, Rockefeller lived at the three top floors at 810 Fifth Avenue. After his divorce and marriage to Happy, his ex-wife kept the two top floors of the triplex apartment, while Nelson and Happy kept the 12th-floor apartment. The apartment was expanded by purchasing a floor of 812 Fifth Avenue, with the two spaces connected via a flight of six steps.Luxury apartment houses of Manhattan: an illustrated history, Andrew Alpern, Dover Publications, 1992, p. 112. Rockefeller and his second wife used the entrance at 812 Fifth while his first wife entered through 810 Fifth. In 1963, former Vice President

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

bought an apartment in the building. During the 1968 presidential contest, Nixon and Rockefeller used different elevators. Nixon held meetings in his fifth-floor apartment during the campaign, including an early meeting with the man who would become his vice president,

Spiro Agnew Spiro Theodore Agnew (November 9, 1918 – September 17, 1996) was the 39th vice president of the United States, serving from 1969 until his resignation in 1973. He is the second vice president to resign the position, the other being John ...

. In 2000, the building's board of directors turned down an application by

Gary Winnick Gary Winnick is an American financier best known for founding and being Chairman of Global Crossing between 1997 and 2002, when it declared bankruptcy. As of 2015, he was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Winnick & Company, a Los Ang ...

to buy the former Nelson Rockefeller apartment. Notable residents have included

Felix Rohatyn Felix George Rohatyn ( ; May 29, 1928 – December 14, 2019) was an American investment banker and diplomat. He spent most of his career with Lazard, where he brokered numerous large corporate mergers and acquisitions from the 1960s through ...

and former Archer Daniels Midland CEO

Dwayne Andreas Dwayne Orville Andreas (March 4, 1918 – November 16, 2016), was one of the leading farm industrialists of the 20th century. He was former CEO and chairman of Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). Under his leadership he turned ADM into the larg ...

. David Geffen moved into 810 in 2006 but moved to 785 Fifth Avenue in 2010. Hedge fund manager William von Mueffling has also been a recent resident.

References

{{coord, 40, 45, 58, N, 73, 58, 16.5, W , display=title Residential buildings in Manhattan Condominiums and housing cooperatives in Manhattan Fifth Avenue Upper East Side Residential buildings completed in 1926 1926 establishments in New York City