[4][6] The Diana Ross Playground and the Great Lawn and Turtle Pond are directly to the east, inside Central Park.

[12][13] Major developments on the West Side were erected after the Ninth Avenue elevated line opened in 1879, providing direct access to Lower Manhattan.

[16][17] The city installed power lines on Central Park West at the end of the 19th century, thus allowing the construction of multi-story apartment hotels with elevators.

[3][1] It is one of five Roth apartment blocks on Central Park West; the others are the El Dorado, the San Remo, the Alden, and the Ardsley.

[28] The north, south, and east elevations contain terracotta ornamentation such as pilasters, broken pediments, balustrades, obelisks, and cartouches.

[38] On the far western end of the 81st and 82nd Street frontages, there is a short standalone wall of rusticated blocks, which contains a round archway topped by a keystone with a winged cherub's head.

[33] At the fourth story on Central Park West, bays 12–17[a] contain a limestone balcony, which projects from the facade and is supported by eight modillions.

The capitals of each pilaster are decorated with varying motifs, including garlands interspersed with classical volutes, as well as cherubs' heads.

[45] The elevator doors in the lobbies each contain floral decorations on their borders, as well as a central coat of arms that depicts a bear.

[27] Each bathroom was covered in ceramic tiles and contained glass doors and multiple showerheads, a novelty at the time of the Beresford's construction.

[27][42] Some units were redecorated for specific tenants; for example, Ely Jacques Kahn designed an Art Deco-style apartment for artist Edith Bry when the building was completed.

[64] By the late 1920s, high-rise apartment buildings were being developed on Central Park West in anticipation of the completion of the New York City Subway's Eighth Avenue Line, which opened in 1932.

[23][67] It contrasted with the multi-story twin towers of the Century, the Majestic, the San Remo, and the El Dorado, which were all built one to two years after the Beresford was completed.

[24] As Christopher Gray of The New York Times wrote: "Had the Beresford been designed a year later, its three towers would have sprouted up like Jack's beanstalk.

[73][74] Emery Roth filed plans that August for a 15-story building on Central Park West, between 81st and 82nd Streets, on behalf of the site's owner Manhattan Square Beresford Inc.

HRH also agreed to manage the Beresford (as well as the San Remo, which it also built) in exchange for two percent of the buildings' gross profits.

[49] The Beresford had been able to rent out many of its suites for $1,000 per room but, after the Wall Street Crash, similar buildings on Central Park West were not able to match that rate.

[86] The New York Times reported in February 1931 that the Bank of United States, which had collapsed not long beforehand,[87] was the actual owner of the Beresford.

[94] The journalist Peter Osnos wrote that the Beresford and other Central Park West apartment houses contained many Jewish residents during the 1930s and 1940s, since these buildings were not "restricted", unlike others on the East Side.

[95] In July 1940, a group of anonymous investors acquired the San Remo and Beresford, assuming a combined $7.4 million in mortgages on the two structures.

[106] The Beresford was one of twelve apartment buildings on Central Park West to be converted into housing cooperatives in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

[111] The Beresford's co-op board also periodically renovated the tenants' private elevator foyers, along with other shared interior spaces.

[112] The Beresford was protected as an official city landmark in 1987,[35] and Akam Associates replaced Douglas Elliman as the building's leasing agent in 1989.

[113] During the 1990s, Crain's New York described the Majestic, Beresford, and El Dorado as having "become brand names that grow in strength as noted personalities move in".

[50][116] The rule was enacted after comedian Jerry Seinfeld spent more than two years renovating his apartment,[116][117] prompting complaints from his neighbors.

[151] Paul Goldberger of The New York Times wrote in 1976 that the Beresford was "a glorious building whose three castle‐like towers and fine siting have made it a long-beloved West Side landmark".

[153] In 1996, a writer for Interior Design magazine said the Beresford was "among the Upper West Side's top-drawer co-ops, the buildings that evoke the basic emotions of lust and envy when one thinks-or dreams-of the apartments within".

[156] John Freeman Gill of the Times wrote in 2005 that the Beresford was one of several buildings on Central Park West whose bases exhibited "the comfortable old solidity of limestone".

[157] The Wall Street Journal referred to the Beresford, Dakota, and San Remo as the "three grand dames of the West Side".

[162][35] Landmarks commissioner Gene A. Norman said the Beresford's towers are part of the Central Park West skyline, contributing to the "image that most of the world has of New York".