New York, NY on South of Union Square

[Museum of Primitive Art, 13-15 West 54th Street, Rhodes School, 9-11 West 54th Street, and 7 West 54th Street.]

Rhodes School was originally the James J. & Josephine Goodwin house. 7 West 54th Street was originally the Philip Lehman house.

IMAGE DATE1971

From

Museum of the City of New York

The Museum of Primitive Art (far left, No. 15), Nelson Rockefeller townhouse (second from left, No. 13), ca. 1971

Rockefeller, the four-term Governor of New York and Vice President under Gerald Ford, founded the Museum of Primitive Art in 1954, in one of two twin townhouses he owned on West 54th Street. In 1979, he died of a heart attack at 13 West 54th Street.

Rockefeller's death became something of a tabloid scandal after it emerged that he died not at his Rockefeller Center office, as initial reports had claimed, but at an office in the West 54th Street townhouse, where he had been in the company of a younger female aide.

The buildings at center and right are the Rhodes School (Nos. 9-11) and No. 7 West 54th Street.

Urban Archive