1049 Fifth Avenue is a 23-floor luxury condominium apartment building located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City.
[1] It is adjacent to and relates architecturally with the former Croyden Hotel, now rental apartments, that shares the remainder of the block to Madison Avenue.
During its renovation, the building owners applied to the Manhattan Borough President's office for an address change, citing the fact that all floors above the seventh provide an unobstructed view of Central Park.
[6] After serious financial problems on the part of its owner, 1049 Fifth Avenue was renovated and converted into luxury condominium apartments starting in 1990.
Later, Guterman suffered substantial financial setbacks due to the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which significantly reduced the value of his real estate holdings, and also the 1987 stock market crash.
An additional bid by Heller failed to purchase the adjoining former William Starr Miller House, a Louis XIII/Beaux-Arts structure located on the corner of Fifth Avenue.
[6] Heller, a 1978 Boston University graduate, was heir to the capital of the Foreston Group, a family-owned conglomerate founded in 1906 that was the largest independent coal mining and distribution operation in the US, then valued at $150 million.
Designed by Costas Kondylis Architects and appointed by the up-market interior design firm Cullman & Kravis, the apartments were accommodated with extensive luxury features, including separate heating and cooling for each room, 12-inch-thick (300 mm) concrete floors, large picture windows, and a butler's pantry in most apartments.
[6] All apartments on the west side of the building above the seventh floor overlook Central Park and the Reservoir, over the top of the adjacent William Starr Miller House.
The same economic circumstances that overtook Gerald Guterman had not yet subsided, and many top real estate development companies were failing.
One of the prestige luxury addresses in Manhattan, Trump Palace, was struggling, and several recently constructed residential high-rises sat empty.
[6] Amidst these perilous economic circumstances and skeptical criticism from industry experts, Heller appeared supremely confident, almost ebullient.
He expressed confidence that his luxury project would command high prices despite the general depression of real estate values, and he predicted that he would not be able to live in the building because every apartment would be sold.
[10] After moving his broadcast operation to Palm Beach, Florida in the late 1990s, Limbaugh railed on his program about high state income tax rates in New York.
In the spring of 2009, New York State adopted a temporary income tax surcharge on wealthy individuals, at which time Limbaugh threatened to sell his condominium and leave the city forever.
New York Governor David Paterson made light of Limbaugh's criticism, saying, "If I knew that would be the result, I would've thought about the taxes earlier.