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1924 1120 Fifth Avenue
– Anthony Campagna President; Michael Campagna Vice President; Armino Campagna Secretary (Kelley Paterno page 286)
Featured in Andrew Alpern’s book The New York Apartment Houses of Rosario Candela and James Carpenter page 92
Located in Expanded Carnegie Hill Historic District designated 21 December 1993
Architect James E.R. Carpenter; Builder 93rd Street & Fifth Avenue Corporation Anthony Campagna President; Michael Campagna Vice President; Armino Campagna Secretary – northeast corner 93rd Street (Alpern Acanthus page 92)
1924
554
$1,000,000.00
5TH [Fifth] AV, 1120 14-sty bk apt, tile rf, 151˙92
OWNER / OWNER ADDRESS
(o) 5th Av. & 93d St. Corp., Anthony Campagna, pres / (o) 200 W 72d [72nd] COMMENTS
ARCHITECT / ARCHITECT ADDRESS
(a) J. E. R. Carpenter / (a) 598 Madison av (source)
“Hardly in the same social class as his blue-blooded neighbors but wealthy just the same,
Jacob Ruppert, Jr., son of the brewer and early settler of East 93rd Street, lived in the apartment building at No. 1120 Fifth Avenue (1924-25) while he owned the New York Yankees and paid Babe Ruth the highest salary in baseball.” source
1120 Fifth Avenue a/k/a 1119-1123 Fifth Avenue
Borough of Manhattan Tax Map Block/Lot: 1505/1
Date: 1924-25 [NB 554-1924]
Type: Apartment Building
Architect: J.E.R. Carpenter S
tyle/Ornament: Neo-Renaissance
Owner/Developer: Fifth Avenue & 93rd Street Corp. (Anthony Campagna, Pres.)
Number of Stories: 14
This fourteen-story neo-Renaissance apartment building is located at the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 93rd Street, with a frontages of approximately 151 feet on both Fifth Avenue and East 93rd Street. Designed by J.E.R. Carpenter, who is responsible for several buildings in this historic district, it was constructed in 1924-25 for the Fifth Avenue & 93rd Street Corp. of builder Anthony Campagna. The same architect and developer were responsible for the slightly later building at 1115 Fifth Avenue, located to the south. A native of Naples [correction: Castelmezzano], Italy, Campagna (1884/85-1969) earned a law degree and contributed funds for the restoration of Virgil’s Tomb at Naples and for the excavation of Herculaneum. In New York he became a successful builder of tall apartment buildings on the Upper East Side; among his philanthropic legacies is the Casa Italiana at Columbia University. No. 1120 Fifth Avenue was originally planned with forty-two large apartments. The brick and limestone facades are articulated by horizontal divisions: the limestone facing at the first three stories and the brick-faced fourth story, topped by a band course, together form the base of the building; above, the brick-sheathed facades are trimmed with corner quoins and divided by a stringcourse at the twelfth-story sill line and by a modillioned cornice above the thirteenth story. The facades are crowned with balustraded parapets.
The main entrance, at the center of the Fifth Avenue facade, is marked by three arched bays rising from the water table. The central bay is the entrance, and the two flanking arches contain multi-paned windows; the arches are surmounted by a bracketed stone and metal balcony. A 1925 photograph shows a canvas-covered canopy, carried by metal poles and extending from the main entrance to the curbside, very similar to that which still exists. The bays at the second, fifth, and twelfth stories are enframed by molded stone surrounds. The windows of the fourth story are separated by decorative terra-cotta panels. The two central ninth-story bays of the East 92nd Street facade are round-arched and fronted by a
balcony. Some of the original eight-over-eight double-hung wood sash windows survive.
Significant References
Anthony Campagna obituary, New York Times, May 9, 1969, p. 47.
Mrs. Anthony Campagna obituary, New York Times, Aug. 23, 1967, p. 51.
New York Public Library, Photographic Views of New York City, 1870s -1970s (Ann Arbor, 1981), fiche 0369B/B5.
Pease & Elliman’s Catalogue of East Side New York Apartment Plans (New York, 1925), 61.
source
“J[ames] E[dwin] R[uthven] Carpenter (1867-1932)
J. E. R. Carpenter was born in Columbia, Tennessee. After graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1878, he studied at the Ecôle des Beaux Arts in Paris before establishing his own practice in Norfolk, Virginia in the 1890s. During the early years of his career, Carpenter designed a number of commercial buildings in Florida, Alabama, and Tennessee. Carpenter was established in New York City by 1903 and from 1904-1908 was in the partnership of Carpenter & Blair (for one year Carpenter, Blair & Gould). Carpenter’s earliest known work in New York City was a nine-story apartment house, 116 East 58th Street (1909, demolished). He established a considerable reputation not only as an expert on apartment design, but also as a successful real estate investor. In 1919 the Architectural Forum noted his important role in the development of the apartment house:
Mr. Carpenter stands as an unquestioned authority on the special phase of building development, it being the general custom of realty and financial men in the metropolis to first submit for his review any such projectioned [sic] improvement of property.
One of Carpenter’s contributions to apartment design involved his defeat of the 75-foot height restriction imposed along Fifth Avenue, thereby initiating a change in the character of that thoroughfare. Carpenter is also credited with the introduction of the foyer-centered apartment plan (as opposed to the “long hall” type).” Park Avenue Historic District Designation Report • April 29, 2014
“On Fifth Avenue, two years ago, he built a house so sumptuous and artistically beautiful, that the best of New York society competed to secure an apartment. And Campagna sells them all, and there were forty, at a price from seventy thousand to a hundred thousand dollars, even before he had had time to finish the factory. [1120 Fifth Avenue]
Currently, the lawyer Anthony Campagna is waiting for the construction of his building masterpiece. The plan, recently played and perfected, is technically flawless and artistically wonderful. The creator has taken and perfects it every day, pouring all his expert knowledge of art and all the infinite resources of his talent and his classic and, at the same time, innovative spirit into it.
The biggest American newspapers have already covered it on the front pages, extensively, extolling this building as the most sumptuous and luxurious in New York, and the news has also had repercussions in the European and Italian press.” From “Basilicata nel Mondo” 1926 Anthony Campagna
STREETSCAPES | J. E. R. CARPENTER
The Architect Who Shaped Upper Fifth Avenue
By Christopher Gray • Aug. 26, 2007
