Fifth Avenue - Upper Fifth Avenue

Upper Fifth Avenue

By the start of the 20th century, the very rich of New York had migrated to the stretch of Fifth Avenue between 59th Street and 96th Street, the stretch where Fifth Avenue faces Central Park. Entries to the park include Inventor's Gate at 72nd Street, which gave access to the park's carriage drives, and Engineers' Gate at 90th Street, used by equestrians.

A milestone for Fifth Avenue came in 1916, when the grand corner mansion at 72nd Street and Fifth Avenue that James A. Burden had erected as recently as 1893 was demolished to make way for a grand apartment house, 907 Fifth Avenue, of 12 stories around a central court, with two apartments to a floor; its strong cornice above the fourth floor, just at the eaves height of its neighbors, was intended to soften its presence. This was the first such replacement.

In January 1922, the city reacted to complaints about the ongoing replacement of Fifth Avenue's mansions by apartment buildings by restricting the height of future structures to 75 feet (23 m), about half the height of a ten-story apartment building. Architect J. E. R. Carpenter brought suit, and won a verdict overturning the height restriction in 1923. Carpenter argued that "the avenue would be greatly improved in appearance when deluxe apartments would replace the old-style mansions."

This area contains many notable apartment buildings, including 810 Fifth Avenue and the Park Cinq, many of them built in the 1920s by architects such as Rosario Candela and J. E. R. Carpenter. A very few post-World War II structures break the unified limestone frontage, notably the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum between 88th and 89th Streets.