

This page is a work in progress. We want to add more about our glorious building. Please send your own contribution to Mark@LTTA.info
This page is a work in progress. We want to add more about our glorious building. Please send your own contribution to Mark@LTTA.info
REAL TRUE ACTUAL FACTS!
= 1670 apartments
= Longer & wider than the Titanic
=
= More to come
= More to come
= More to come
LONDON TERRACE HISTORY
Links: Click them all!
amazing 1929-30 Construction Film
ADs! brochures! 1940 historic films! it's a big HISTORY PAGE
And
PLEASE SEND US YOUR LINKS AND PDFS
AND
AND
AND
London Terrace was the dream of real estate mogul Henry Mandel, a flashy developer who was the Donald Trump of his day. In the late 1920's, when the American economy was still strong, Mandel began acquiring land in Chelsea on which to build the largest apartment building New York, and the world, had ever seen.
By 1929, he owned the city block bounded by Ninth and Tenth Avenues and 23rd and 24th streets. The land was once owned by Clement Clark Moore, who wrote 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, and was located across from fashionable "Millionaire's Row". Mandel hired the architectural firm of Farrar & Watmaugh to design the massive complex, which was built in two phases. The central structure, comprised of ten adjoining buildings, was completed in 1930. Later, the four corner structures were added. The complex contained 1665 apartments comprised of 4,000 residential rooms. Mandel's dream, however, was grander still.
He filled London Terrace with state-of-the-art amenities that included: a 75' x 35' pool, an acre of gardens, a building-wide intercom system, on site shopping, a free page-boy service, a telephone message service, a penthouse community room, a rooftop play area for children, and another roofdeck furnished like the deck of a grand ocean liner. The pool, roofdeck, and gardens are still in use today. Acclaimed and ambitious, the dream eventually killed its creator. The Great Depression struck just as Mandel started to build, forcing the developer into foreclosure in 1934. Mandel jumped to his death from atop his dream building, leaving the elegant London Terrace a financial mess that took almost fifteen years and four banks to clear up.