More than a century ago, these short blocks of Park Avenue that run south of Grand Central used to be home to upper crust mansions and townhouses. Today, they don’t feel especially cohesive. But that’s maybe to its benefit as it’s a grab-bag of pre-war apartments, cultural institutions, and some old townhouses that used to characterize the neighborhood.
Helping to liven up the tree-lined malls are a group of large resin animal sculptures by Michel Bassompierre which will be hanging out there until May 2026.
Here’s the street-view level.
The Eastern side of the block is a little more compelling.
55 Park Avenue | 1923
This is a beautiful 1920s apartment building by then uber-developer Fred F. French and carries the best of interwar luxury: vibrant brickwork, stone arches, and columns. There are just two units per floor, with listings often featuring oak herringbone floors and wood-burning fireplaces, according to CityRealty.
There’s also a series of cool carvings at the ground entrance, including a dude reading:
If we can get salacious for a minute.
A few days before Christmas 1926, Wallace Probasco rode the elevator to the eighth-floor apartment of Roberta Ingersoll,1 with whom he’d been having an affair, according to a contemporaneous account pieced together by the New York Times. (Roberta estranged husband, Robert H. Ingersoll, was a retired watch manufacturer associated with the mass-marketed “dollar watch.”)
The conversation turned to why he didn’t show the previous night, as was the plan and the pair got into an argument, according to reports, when Probasco told her he was reconciling with his wife. She’d also been preparing to sue to get back some some jewelry. At some point, one of them stepped into the bedroom overlooking Park Avenue and picked up Ingersoll’s .32-caliber gun, which ended up in her hands.
The Times wrote: “Whether she gave warning or not the police were not sure, but they were convinced she opened fire on him and struck him with each of the three bullets she fired.”
He was only injured, but she was fatally shot just below her heart. Detectives found the circumstances suspicious, but ultimately released him after concluding she shot herself, when they found a suicide note in the apartment that was still filled with cards and partially wrapped Christmas gifts.
West side of Park Avenue
Church of Our Savior | 1959
I don’t really know much about churches. It seems like a nice one though.
Scandinavia House | 2000
The Scandinavia House is a charming little Nordic outpost and the zinc facade offers a modern touch to the pre-war apartments that march south down Park Avenue.
It’s partially funded by the governments of Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland to promote the art, culture, and food of northern Europe. Inside is a restaurant, gallery, theater, children’s center and a gift store which sells crafts, tinned fish, lingonberry preserves.
If you stop in during the holiday season, look for Saturnus Glogg, a concentrate of cinnamon, sugar, and cloves that is supposed to be good with wine.
Definitely check the place out.
Get yer Glogg here
The “Seli” cutter
About 140 feet under this median strip between 37th and 38th streets is a 200-ton boring machine entombed in concrete, according to the New York Times.
It was used to drill tunnels for the East Side Access project, bringing the Long Island Rail Road into Grand Central. When that phase was finished in 2011, construction managers decided it was cheaper to leave the cutter underground than to haul it all the way to the end of the tunnel in Sunnyside, Queens. As the Times put it in 2011:
A recent visit to the cutter’s future crypt revealed a machine that evokes an alien life form that crashed to earth a millennia ago. Its steel gears, bolts and pistons, already oxidizing, appeared lifeless and fatigued. A wormlike fan, its exhaust pipe disappearing into the cutter’s maw, was still spinning, its drone not unlike a slumbering creature’s breath.
One day, it’ll dig itself out and run for state senator or something.
57 Park Avenue, the Adelaide L. T. Douglas House | 1911
This slice of Louis XVI extravagance comes complete with a weathered copper mansard roof and carved stone panels above the entrance. The short version—summarized from Daytonian in Manhattan—goes something like this:
A woman marries a guy who is really into yachts
She has a rumored affair with one of the richest people in the world, J.P. Morgan2
He pays to build her a house where she lives the life of a socialite
After she dies in 1935, the house becomes apartments and offices, including those for the U.S. Olympic Committee
Finally, in 1978 it’s sold to Guatemala to become its diplomatic mission to the United Nations.
From the top of the Prince Kitano Hotel at night
What’s Good: Nice variety and 55 Park is a gem. Glögg is fun to write.
What’s Not: At heart, despite its elegance, this slice of Park Avenue still feels like a through-corridor.
Block Rating: 6/10
1 Sometimes referred to as “Mazie” but the newspapers of the time seemed to go by “Roberta.”
2 Writes Daytonian: “The one guest who did not enter through the double entrance doors on Park Avenue was J. P. Morgan. According to family members, the millionaire had a private entrance at the rear of the house.”