The Majestic
Like an epic mountain range, Central Park West is lined with an amazing assortment of architecturally stunning apartment buildings. One such building is The Majestic on 72nd Street across from the Dakota, making it quite the intersection. Did you know it was the location of one of history’s most infamous mob hits? That’s right, the Upper West Side has organized crime history, who knew!?
Photo by Michael Minn
In 1890, construction started on Jacob Rothschild’s life achievement, the Hotel Majestic. Quite a rags-to-riches story of old school Americana actually. Rothschild immigrated to the US from Germany in 1856 at the age of 13. He then started work at a millinery store (a hat manufacturing facility) on the Lower East Side and after saving his earnings for ten years opened his own shop. When he retired from the millinery business (at the young age of 24!) he had become very wealthy and knew that real estate was his next adventure.
Photo by Getty Images
As with the Dakota, critics called him crazy to spend so much money constructing a grand hotel so far uptown.
His hotel was 12 stories tall and there were 560 rooms and 268 bath-rooms as well as a 10,000 square foot restaurant, parlor, drawing rooms, ballroom and billiards hall. Record & Guide said of Hotel Majestic’s design "it was of the finest, marbles, hardwoods, bronze, brass and metal work of other kinds."
Photo by Library of Congress
What I found interesting is that Hotel Majestic was the first of its kind to have a roof garden, something that is quite common today.
Hotel Majestic in 1929 before demolition
Photo by NY Historical Society
Hotel Majestic had a good 30 year run before it was sold for $5 million and then demolished in 1928. Central Park West’s landscape was changing and the Hotel Majestic was just one of many properties making way for new art deco apartment buildings.
The developers behind the new project were none other than The Chanin Brothers, who notably designed and built six broadway theaters, including The Majestic. Named after its historic predecessor, The Majestic Apartments opened on October 1, 1931 and was 30 stories tall with very distinguishable twin towers rising from its base.
The Majestic with it’s equally famous neighbor The Dakota
Photo by WikiCommons
Rear of The Majestic (1955)
Photo by NYPL Digital Archives
The Majestic was originally a 235-apartment rental building. Keep in mind, most of the apartments had approximately 10 rooms and were quite luxurious, very different from our idea of rentals today.
Over the years, The Majestic has had plenty of notable tenants, but what I never knew, and find fascinating, is that it was home to a large number of crime family bosses including Lucky Luciano, and Meyer Lansky, as well the head of Murder, Inc… Scandalous!
Frank Costello during the Kefauver Senate Hearings into Organized Crime (1951)
Photo by WikiCommons
Frank Costello, who also lived there, was Boss of the Luciano Crime Family. In 1957, after returning home from dinner with his wife, Vincent ‘The Chin’ Gigante pulled up in a black sedan and stormed the lobby of The Majestic, firing at Costello and hitting him in the head.
He miraculously survived and lived on until 1973. The hit was ordered by associate Vito Genevesse who was vying for power. The attempted murder scared Costello so much that he chose to retire and relinquish control of the Luciano Family to Vito, thus it became the Genovesse Crime Family. Who knew the bucolic Upper West Side was the setting for mafia takeovers?!
The Majestic looking north along Central Park South
Photo by NY Municipal Archives
Photo by Chris Baker
In 1958, The Majestic converted to a Cooperative Apartment complex, which is how it remains today. Apartments for sale tend to range from $1.5MM to $30MM depending on size and floor. Check out some of the images from Unit 19EF which is for sale for $27.500,000. I’d buy it just for the Central Park views!
Photos by Brown Harris Stevens
Photo by Chris Baker
72nd Street and Central Park West is definitely one of my favorite corners of the city. The stunning architectural marvels, like beacons, seem to be waving across the Park at their less glamorous east side counterparts. Next time you’re there try and imagine the 1950’s Dick Tracy-esque sedan screeching up to The Majestic on that fateful night for the attempted mob assassination, like something out of the movies. Stories like those are the reason I love the rich (and sometimes forgotten) history of New York CIty.
Photo by Daniel Case
