Overview

About 980 Fifth Avenue

This 26-story tower was erected as a cooperative in 1966 on the site of a chateau-like mansion that had been erected by Isaac Brokaw in 1887.

The controversial demolition of the Brokaw mansion, which was nicely complemented by the elaborate townhouse designed by C.P.H. Gilbert for Isaac Fletcher and occupied for many years by Augustus Van Horn Stuyvesant, directly across 79th Street that now houses the Ukrainian Institute of America, was a factor in the city's creation of a landmarks preservation law as it happened about the same time as the demolition of the former Pennsylvania Station in midtown and aroused the public to the loss of important architectural monuments.

Because of the notoriety associated with the demolition of the Brokaw mansion, this tower has not been popular in many architectural circles.

It is, however, quite handsome and one of the better apartment towers to have been erected in the city after World War II.

Its dark, grayish brown brick facade would be somber if it were not enlivened by the slightly projecting limestone window bays, one on each of its facades. The composition gives the tower a strong sense of verticality, accentuating its already dramatic break with the traditional 15-story cornice line of the avenue's apartment houses.

Although 825 Fifth Avenue several blocks to the south was significantly higher than its neighbors, it was stylistically contextual whereas this tower's modernity and minimalism was in sharp contrast to its neighbors. Furthermore, this tower achieved its height by providing a plaza that enabled it to use a zoning "bonus." The creation of a plaza on a broad cross-street such as 79th Street, to say nothing of being directly across from Central Park, is, and was, superfluous and unnecessary and disruptive of the area's traditional street grid. Subsequently, the city would change its zoning and create an historic district to prevent such incongruities along much of the avenue's frontage on the park.    

View full profile, photos, map and apartments for sale & rent at 980 Fifth Avenue