The eighteen-story structure and penthouse was designed by noted architect Emery Roth and built in 1940.

[2][3][4][5] According to architecture critic Paul Goldberger, 930 and 875 Fifth Avenue show Roth in transition from historicist to modern Art Deco style.

[6] The Fifth Avenue location previously held three private residences which were the estates of Gordon S. Rentschler, Jacob Schiff and Simeon B. Chapin, and were bought by Percy and Harold D. Uris and razed for the new building,[7][8] which has been described as featuring "a restrained Italian Renaissance style.

A 1978 review of Roth's work by architecture critic Paul Goldberger in The New York Times commented that "the Roth firm took on modernism slowly--the Normandy apartments of 1938 at 140 Riverside Drive have an Art Deco-like base, but the ornamental housing for the water tower lurches back suddenly to the Italian Renaissance.

"[10] Residents of the building have included Samuel and Bella Spewack, Patrick Dennis, Cornelius Vander Starr, Ira Millstein,[11] Risë Stevens, Nancy Hanks, Woody Allen[12] and Eldridge Haynes.