The El Dorado Apartments
This week I wanted to leave downtown and head north to one of my favorite chunks of the city - the Upper West Side! To no one’s surprise, I will mostly be talking about ~me~ again.
In the summer of 2018, I was a dog walker primarily in the UWS and had more adventures than I can count. My favorite story from that summer involves this very building. I signed up to walk this gorgeous golden retriever named Duffy whose owners were a lovely elderly couple that lived on one of the top floors of the El Dorado. I took Duffy on a lovely hour-long walk through Central Park on an especially hot summer day. He knew his way around the park better than me and led me to some really cool hidden spots (including a pond with a ton of turtles that he very much wanted to eat). We were headed home when Mr. Duffy found a pile of mud that he proceeded to lunge straight into and roll around in. I thought approximately three things:
His owners live in a very fancy building that I will now have to walk through with a muddy ass dog
His owners are clearly very rich and will be very pissed that I am bringing their dog home a completely different color
I am going to be sued for probably a million dollars
poorly drawn reenactment of me walking through the lobby with Duffy
These thoughts were clearly showing on my face because a small crowd of people started to form around me as I struggled to 1) get Duffy out of the mud and 2) hold back tears. Out of the kindness of these people’s hearts, they started pouring their waters on him to try and clean him off. Mind you, it was at least 90 degrees that day! These people were just giving me all the water they had! Some people even ran to the nearby bathroom for more! I have never received such kindness from a group of complete strangers and it made me completely fall in love with the people here. …Unfortunately, Duffy was still incredibly filthy and now just covered in slightly watered-down mud. But! It’s the thought that counts, right?! Luckily, the owners were so so kind and just said “Classic Duffy. He loves mud.” I would’ve really appreciated a heads-up on that.
Anyway, I’ll just give you the SparkNotes version of this building’s history as I have already virtually yapped your ears off.
The history of ownership of this building is a bit of a whirlwind tbh:
The current apartment complex was constructed from 1929 to 1931 by developer Louis Klosk, who was unable to complete the building after the Wall Street Crash of 1929. #broke
The Central Park Plaza Corporation bought the El Dorado at a foreclosure auction in 1931.
The corporation was taken over by the Pick Hotels Corporation in 1943
Then by Hugh K. McGovern in January 1953.
AND THEN in May 1953 it was sold to pastor Charles M. "Daddy" Grace (direct quote from Wikipedia, “better known as Charles Manuel "Sweet Daddy" Grace”. fucking pardon??), whose estate sold the building in 1960 to Alexander Gross.
The El Dorado finally became a housing cooperative in July 1982, and several parts of the building were upgraded, despite disagreement among tenants (classic co-op behavior).
This building consists of 29 stories split up amongst two towers. The reason for this design is due to the Multiple Dwelling Act of 1929 which essentially states that apartment buildings could only be so many stories high before they had to set back (depending on the width of the adjacent street). In this case, the base of the El Dorado is 17 stories and the two towers are each 12 stories. Now I guess this act has been revised throughout the years as construction has advanced? I don’t know guys, please don’t quote me on any of this. I had to read through a bunch of boring ass PDFs just to slightly understand what any of this means. Here’s one to read through if you’re super jazzed about government policies regarding construction.
1975 view of the El Dorado, looking northwest from Central Park
Fun Facts
Past residents of the El Dorado include Marilyn Monroe, Groucho Marx, and Carrie Fisher (dream blunt rotation?)
This building is home to one of the most expensive ugliest apartments I’ve ever seen. This apartment was owned by Hester Diamond who was an art collector. Like RIP, sorry to be such a hater, I’m sure you were cool, but it pisses me off to see something this expensive look so cheap.
There was a crazy legal battle over apartment 9B that involved an even crazier family. (Attempted murder? Trans rights? Peeing on yourself? Read all about it here)
That’s all for this week, pals. I’ve really enjoyed people’s responses to these and this ever-growing community we’re forming. If you have someone you think would also like these, here’s the link to subscribe:
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