- Year built
- 1929
502 Park Avenue is one of Manhattan's most architecturally and culturally consequential 1929 buildings — a structure that opened six weeks before the October stock-market crash, anchored the cultural transition of the postwar Park Avenue / 59th Street commercial-residential seam through the Régine's and Christie's decades, and was converted by Donald Trump into one of his earliest and most ambitious residential condominium projects.
The building's structural identity rests on three features that together produce one of the most flexible high-end ownership profiles on Park Avenue. First, the condominium structure itself — Trump Park Avenue is one of the small number of condominium options on Park Avenue south of 60th Street, the address line that otherwise reads almost entirely as prewar cooperative inventory. Second, the apartment-scale variance — floors 3 through 4 carry former-ballroom units with ceilings up to 15 feet, mid-floors carry 1- to 3-bedroom layouts, terraces begin at floor 16, and floors 20 through 32 hold twelve full-floor apartments of 4,000 to 7,000 square feet with private elevator landings. Third, the policy flexibility of the condominium declaration — pied-à-terre, subletting, LLC, trust, and foreign ownership are all standard and permitted without the cooperative board-interview infrastructure that applies at every prewar coop on the corridor.
The cultural overlay is dense. The building hosted Bob Dylan's August 28, 1964 introduction of cannabis to The Beatles in their sixth-floor suite. It housed Christie's first international auction branch from 1977, Régine's celebrity-magnet disco where Andy Warhol was a regular before Studio 54, and a series of presidential, governmental, and entertainment industry residents through the Trump conversion era.
Architecture and unit composition
The building opened in 1929 as the Viceroy Hotel, was renamed within months to Cromwell Arms after James H.R. Cromwell purchased it, and settled on Hotel Delmonico later in 1929 when the famed century-old Delmonico's Restaurant relocated to the property — six weeks before the October stock-market crash. Built at a cost of approximately $5 million as a 525-room hotel, the property entered receivership and was sold at auction in 1936 for $1.8 million.
Carter Horsley's CityRealty review (December 23, 2011) notes that the building "marked the northern end of the commercial section of Park Avenue and has complimented the taller, grander and flashier Ritz Tower two blocks south." James Trager wrote in Park Avenue, Street of Dreams (1990) that the building originally featured an apartment "called the highest-priced apartment in the world, a fifteen-room triplex occupying the three top floors and rented for $3,750 a month."
The 1929 architectural composition — three-story limestone base, brown-brick facade, set-back masonry tower, pitched red-tile roof — placed the building in the late-1920s skyscraper-hotel idiom that produced the Sherry-Netherland, the Pierre, and the Ritz Tower in the same window. The handsome original proportions inspired American Modernist painter Charles Sheeler to paint the building — from the back.
William Zeckendorf Jr. acquired the building in 1975 and converted it to a 193-unit rental, then leased space to Christie's auction house (its first international branch, 1977) and to Régine's, the celebrity disco run by Régine Choukroun. The building flipped from rental to cooperative, then back to an all-suites hotel in 1990 under Sarah Korein's ownership.
In November 2001, the Trump Organization bought the property from Korein's estate for $115 million and launched an $80 million conversion completed by 2005. Kondylis preserved the original limestone facade but, per Horsley, "Mr. Trump added substantial space to several of the tower's floors on the north and west sides that were glass-clad and not at all in context with the building's architectural style." Horsley's bottom line on the conversion: "distinctive towers... extraordinary vistas at a very choice location."
Apartment configurations distribute across the building's 32 floors with material scale variance. Floors 3 and 4 contain large former-ballroom units with ceilings up to 15 feet. Floors 5 through 15 are 1- to 3-bedroom layouts. Terraces begin at floor 16. From floor 20 upward, twelve full-floor apartments of 4,000 to 7,000 square feet are accessed by private elevator landings. The 31st-to-32nd-floor penthouse duplex carries 17-foot vaulted ceilings and 42 arched windows.
Building operations
Trump Park Avenue operates as a full-service condominium with the following operational baseline:
- 24-hour doorman and concierge
- Valet, laundry, valet parking, daily maid service available
- Live-in resident manager
- Fitness center on premises
- Ground-floor commercial: Scully & Scully (luxury home furnishings, occupying the address since 1934 — over 90 continuous years); New York Sports Club in the former Régine's space
- No on-site garage in the residential infrastructure; valet parking is contracted
The building's commercial-residential ground-floor configuration is structurally important to the operational identity — Scully & Scully has been the building's anchor retail tenant since 1934, predating every other current operational feature.
Recent sales
Recent recorded transfers at 502 Park Avenue, sourced from public records and verified listing data:
| Date | Unit | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 2025 | PH27 | $7.3 million | 4 BR / 5.5 BA / 4,205 sf; approximately $1,700/sf; roughly half the 2016 acquisition price |
| 2019 | Penthouse | $15.9 million | Ivanka Trump / Jared Kushner sale (acquired 2004 for approximately $1.5 million; held through Trump White House period) |
| 2017 | Penthouse | $21 million | Donald Trump's own penthouse sale |
Apartment-level closing detail (BBL 1-01393 series) can be pulled from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers for full transactional context. Common-charges and real-estate-tax structure at the condominium produces material monthly carrying costs at the penthouse scale — substantial penthouses carry $20,000+ per month all-in.
What to know if you’re buying
The condominium structure is the largest single competitive advantage. Pied-à-terre, subletting, LLC ownership, trust ownership, and foreign buyer eligibility are all permitted under the declaration — a profile uncommon along Park Avenue south of 79th Street.
Apartment-scale variance is material. The configuration spans from 1-bedroom mid-floor layouts to 7,000-square-foot full-floor penthouses with 17-foot ceilings. Verify the specific apartment line, ceiling height, and elevator-landing configuration during diligence.
The Scully & Scully ground-floor commercial tenancy is structurally important. Continuous occupancy since 1934 anchors the building's commercial identity.
The 2025 PH27 closing repriced the penthouse market. The $7.3 million close at approximately $1,700 per square foot was roughly half the 2016 acquisition price — a meaningful reference point for any 2026 penthouse purchase.
Common charges and real-estate-tax structure are material at scale. Penthouse-level all-in carrying costs commonly exceed $20,000 per month.
Verify the right-of-first-refusal mechanics during diligence. Condominium ROFR is rarely exercised in practice but the declaration mechanic should be reviewed.
Closing timelines are condominium-standard. Plan for 30 to 45 days from contract through ROFR waiver to closing.
What to know if you’re selling
Marketing should emphasize the condominium policy flexibility. Pied-à-terre, subletting, foreign buyer eligibility, and LLC ownership are the building's single largest competitive advantage versus prewar Park Avenue cooperative inventory.
The cultural and historical overlay supports premium positioning. The Hotel Delmonico provenance — Lucille Ball, Bob Dylan and The Beatles, Christie's, Régine's — is real institutional context that adds to the building's identity.
Apartment-line and floor-specific marketing matters. The 32-floor configuration produces material variance; positioning should specify ceiling height, elevator-landing configuration, and view exposure.
Pricing should reference the August 2025 PH27 closing. The $1,700/sf benchmark at the penthouse level is the most recent reference point.
Closing timelines are condominium-standard.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 502 Park Avenue, also evaluate:
- 500 Park Avenue — Pei Cobb Freed condominium; immediate Park Avenue south-of-60th peer
- 610 Park Avenue (The Mayfair) — Carpenter 1925 with Kondylis 1998 condominium conversion; Park Avenue prewar-into-condominium peer
- 1110 Park Avenue — DDG 2015 condominium; Carnegie Hill Park Avenue condominium peer
- 715 Park Avenue — Emery Roth & Sons 1948 condominium; Lenox Hill Park Avenue condominium peer
The Roebling Team at Trump Park Avenue (formerly Hotel Delmonico)
The Roebling Team at Compass specializes in Central Park West, the Upper East Side, and the broader Park-facing Manhattan market. We publish this building profile because Park Avenue condominium buyers and sellers deserve building-specific intelligence — architectural attribution, operational structure, transactional mechanics, and pricing at the apartment level — not generic market commentary.
If you're considering a purchase or sale at 502 Park, a 30-minute consultation is the right starting point.
Corey Cohen · The Roebling Team at Compass 646.939.7375 · c.cohen@compass.com
Sources: CityRealty (Carter Horsley review, December 23, 2011); Compass building data; Brown Harris Stevens listings; Corcoran building page; The Real Deal (multiple, including 2025 PH27 reporting); 6sqft (penthouse coverage); Wikipedia (Trump Park Avenue, with citations to NYT, NY Post, Bloomberg, Variety, Forbes, WSJ); James Trager, Park Avenue, Street of Dreams (1990); New York Times, Charles V. Bagli, November 30, 2001 (Trump acquisition); NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-01393 series).