Carter's Review

This modest, 14-story building at 1045 Fifth Avenue between 85^th and 86^th Street has the only mostly glass façade on Fifth Avenue north of 59th Street on the Upper East Side.

But its modernity is not very disruptive as its top floors are significantly setback and the glass has a very dark brown tint that does not distract from its taller, swank, pre-war, limestone-clad neighbor to the south at 1040 Fifth Avenue or the Georgian-style, red-brick and limestone corner mansion that now houses the Neue Gallerie to the north and was originally designed by Carrere & Hastings for William Starr Miller in 1914 and subsequently used by Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt III and the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research.

This building was erected in 1967 by Manny Duell and designed by Horace Ginsberg.  The building’s two-bedroom apartments had rents that year of $620 to $650 and all tenants had access through the basement to a 30-foot-deep rear garden “landscaped in the Japanese manner, according to a May 7, 1967 article in The New York Times. 

The site, consisting of a 6-story building and a vacant lot, had been sold in 1960 to Mr. Duell by the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts Inc., and the Juilliard School of Music.

Mr. Duell, president of the Morgan Holding Company, lived in the building, which originally had 25 apartments.  It was converted to a cooperative in 1980.  It now has 12 apartments as some apartments were combined.  Mr. Duell, who died in 1977, was an active investor in real estate on the Upper East Side and in Greenwich Village, where he owned the building that housed Sutter’s, which had the finest prune Danish in the country, across from the old Women’s House of Detention that was razed for a community garden behind the Jefferson Courthouse Library.

Mr. Duell also owned most of the three-story townhouses that made up Patchin Place and Milligan Place on the same block, two of the city’s most charming small mews.  Residents on Patchin Place included John Reed, the famous propagandist for the Soviet Union who was portrayed by Warren Beatty in his fine film, “Reds,” Theodore Dreiser, the novelist, and E. E. Cummings, the poet.

Bottom Line

Located in the midst of Museum Mile with superb bus service, a nice nearby playground and an entrance to Central Park near the large reservoir, this handsome and modern mid-rise building has very few apartments all with wide Juliet balconies with glorious views of the Park.

Description

The building is quite elegant with its full-width front windows with sliding doors opening onto the narrow full-width balconies on the avenue.

It has a canopied entrance and landscaping.

Amenities

The building has a doorman, a canopied entrance, a paneled lobby and raised landscaping planters along the side of the building.

Apartments

The duplex penthouse was a gift from Mr. Duell to his wife, Irene, who lived there until her death in 2014 at the age of 92.  A February 22, 2015 article in The New York Times described it as “a glamorous 1960s time capsule with a dash of Hollywood in its décor and more than 800 square feet of wraparound balconies reached through glass sliders.”  The asking price for it was $15.5 million and it was purchased in 2015 by Paul McCartney of the Beatles, who appropriately changed the world in the 1960s.  The article said that “the main floor of the penthouse has a private elevator landing; inside, there are white marble floors in the foyer as well as in the elegant formal dining room with north and east exposures, and in  the two-tier gallery, which  is lit by an antique crystal chandelier.” “The gallery,” the article continued, “has a floating staircase of white marble, glass and bronze connecting the living/entertaining level to the upstairs bedrooms.  There are a powder room and a full bath at opposite ends of the foyer.  The powder room has travertine floors, a stone vanity and a north window with views of the park and the George Washington Bridge.  The other bath is a glamorous mélange of black marble and faux finishes, with fixtures that resemble faceted gold nuggets and a shower hidden behind a golden wall.  The 28-by-15-foot living room and the 14-by-33-foot library/den have parquet floors and share 40 feet of park frontage as well as a 40-by-6-foot balcony.”

Apartment 8AB/9A is a five-bedroom duplex with a private landing that opens onto a wide hall that leads north to a long hall that leads east to the 20-foot-wide master bedroom and leads south to the 15-foot-long kitchen and 9-foot-wide maid’s room and opens directly onto the 42-foot-by-23-foot living/dining room overlooking Central Park.  There are three bedrooms on the 8^th floor and a stair to the 9^th floor where there are two more bedrooms and a 31-foot-long living/dining room and enclosed kitchen.

Apartment 2B is a two-bedroom unit with an entry foyer off an enclosed, 9-foot-long kitchen that leads to a gallery that opens onto a 32-foot-long living room with a 15-foot-long dining alcove both fronting on the wide Juliet balcony overlooking Fifth Avenue and Central Park.