35 West 57th Street, 1891 – 2027

Another piece of Old New York is set to fall to the wrecker’s ball. The five-story Beaux-Arts mansion at 35 West 57th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, has been sold for $42 million and is set to be demolished, and replaced by one of those gawd-awful needle skyscrapers that are making the New York skyline look like a broken comb. The house had been commissioned as a wedding gift from Margaret Vanderbilt Shepard for her daughter, Maria Louisa Vanderbilt Shepard, and her husband, William Jay Schieffelin. It eventually passed to businessman Samuel W. Bowne, later becoming retail space. The Save57 group tried to save it, to no avail; The Soloviev Group (I picture them as being run by Lionel Barrymore in It’s a Wonderful Life) have already leveled the neighboring Millionaire’s Row mansions. Derek Gilchrist of Sedesco told the New York Post (no doubt twirling his moustache), “Sedesco is excited to deepen our investment in Midtown with the recent acquisition of 35 W. 57th Street, marking an important step forward in our plan to deliver a world-class project to the neighborhood that adds to the surrounding community.” Nertz, says I.