York Avenue runs from 59th to 92nd Streets through eastern Lenox Hill and Yorkville on the Upper East Side.

At that time, the New York City Board of Aldermen approved a petition to change the name from "Avenue A" to "Sutton Place", covering the blocks between 57th and 60th Streets.

The property behind One Sutton Place South was the subject of a dispute between the building's owners and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.

In 1939, city authorities took ownership of the property behind One Sutton Place South by eminent domain in connection with the construction of the FDR Drive, then leased it back to the building for $1 a year.

[16][17] The co-op tried unsuccessfully to extend the lease, and later made prospective apartment-buyers review the legal status of the backyard and sign a confidentiality agreement.

[19]Former and current residents of Sutton Place include architect I. M. Pei;[20] socialite Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan of the Vanderbilt family; French-American writer, journalist and pianist Eve Curie; cabaret singer and pianist Bobby Short;[20] rock stars Freddie Mercury[21] and Michael Jackson; actor Peter Lawford and his wife Patricia Kennedy Lawford of the Kennedy family; Ziegfeld Girl and businesswoman Irene Hayes; actresses Lillian Gish, Joan Crawford,[21] Mildred Natwick, Maureen O'Hara, Sigourney Weaver,[21][20][22] and Marilyn Monroe[21] and her then-husband Arthur Miller;[21] actress and interior decorator Elsie de Wolfe and actress, fashion designer and socialite C. Z.

Guest; clothing designers Bill Blass[22] and Kenneth Cole and interior designer Valerian Rybar;[23] shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis; banker Richard Jenrette; hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam; Steven Hoffenberg, founder of Towers Financial Corporation, a debt collection agency; John Fairchild, publisher of Women’s Wear Daily; politician and business leader Percy Sutton; "Preppy Killer" Robert Chambers and his ex-girlfriend, Shawn Kovell; former New York Governor Mario Cuomo; and all UN Secretaries-General since Kurt Waldheim.

Next door, the official residence of the Secretary-General of the United Nations is a four-storey brick townhouse that was built in 1921 for Anne Morgan, daughter of financier J.P. Morgan, and donated as a gift to the United Nations in 1972 by industrialist Arthur A. Houghton Jr.[24] The Secretary's home is 0.6 miles (0.97 km) from the UN Headquarters.

These townhouses have a park at the rear with FDR Drive running below (Sutton Place Tunnel) along the East River.

The auction house Sotheby's is headquartered on York Avenue until its planned 2025 departure for the former Whitney Art Museum Breuer building.