390 Fifth Avenue
historic landmark building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York City
390 Fifth Avenue, also known as the Gorham Building, is an Italian Renaissance Revival palazzo-style building at Fifth Avenue and West 36th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, New York, United States. It was designed by McKim, Mead & White, with Stanford White as the partner in charge, and built in 1904–1906. The building was named for the Gorham Manufacturing Company, a major manufacturer of sterling and silverplate, and was a successor to the former Gorham Manufacturing Company Building at 889 Broadway. The building features bronze ornamentation and a copper cornice.
390 Fifth Avenue was occupied by the Gorham Manufacturing Company between 1905 and 1923. It was then home to Russeks department store from 1924 to 1959, and then Spear Securities from 1960, who changed the street level facade. It was designated a New York City landmark in 1998, after the lower floors were significantly altered from their original design.
Site
390 Fifth Avenue, also known as the Gorham Building, is in the South Midtown neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States, on the southwestern corner of Fifth Avenue and 36th Street. The land lot is slightly L-shaped and covers 12,575 square feet (1,168.3 m2). The main building measures 67 feet (20 m) on Fifth Avenue and 167 feet (51 m) along 36th Street.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “390 Fifth Avenue” is historic landmark building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York City. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Fifth, Avenue and historic, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “historic landmark building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York City” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5586408. Authority coordinates are 40.750, -73.984. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1904, 1906, 1905 and 1923.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “390 Fifth Avenue”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 390 Fifth Avenue primary sources, 390 Fifth Avenue archive and Fifth research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “390 Fifth Avenue” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.