Houses at 647, 651-53 Fifth Avenue and 4 East 52nd Street

Three former townhouses on Fifth Avenue at East 52nd Street, built between 1902 and 1905, survive from the era when New York's wealthiest families lined the avenue with lavish residences. No. 647, a marble French neo-Renaissance house by Hunt & Hunt, was built for the Vanderbilt family and is described as the sole surviving Vanderbilt mansion of its kind in Manhattan. No. 651-53, a limestone neo-Italian Renaissance corner house by Robert W. Gibson, was completed for Morton F. Plant. No. 4 East 52nd Street, a smaller neo-classical house by C.P.H. Gilbert, was built for Edward Holbrook. Beginning in 1917, the buildings were converted to commercial use, housing the art dealers Gimpel & Wildenstein and the jeweler Cartier. Architects including W.W. Bosworth made restrained alterations that respected the original designs. Today the buildings remain in commercial use and recall the avenue's turn-of-the-century residential character and its shift to elegant commerce after World War I.