51 Fifth Avenue (New York City, New York)

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171-foot, 15-story Neo-Classical cooperative-apartment building completed in 1928. Designed by Thomas W. Lamb, it has a 1-story stone ashlar base, with a reddish-brown brick facade above. There is a central entrance on Fifth Avenue, with a long, green canvas canopy extending out over the sidewalk. The 5th Avenue facade has five middle bays of single windows, and paired windows at the end bays, all with stone sills. The East 12th Street elevation is asymmetrical. From east to west, there is a bay of single windows, a bay of smaller single windows, and a bay of very large 2-over-4 windows. Further to the west and spaced closer together are a bay of triple windows with the right third separated by a thick iron mullion, a bay of tall single-windows (with sills lower than the rest of those on the facade), a bay of double-windows (with a thick iron mullion slightly offset to the right), and then alternating bays of single and paired windows, with a slightly larger end bay of single windows.

A stone string course runs along the base of the 3rd floor. The second and top floors have some decorative Neo-Classical elements, consisting mainly of columns topped by pediments and flanked by stone rosettes at the end bays. The top two floors also are defined by stone string courses. At the 6th & 12th floors on 5th Avenue, the end bays have narrow iron balconettes.

A tan modillioned roof cornice caps both facades, and wraps partly around to the east wall, which is clad in red-painted brick, with two bays of double-windows in the center, a single-window bay on the north end, and bay of smaller windows on the south end.

The building was converted to a cooperative in 1988, with 89 apartments. Governor Alfred E. Smith–the 1928 Democratic presidential nominee, and the first Roman Catholic major party presidential candidate–moved here shortly after his defeat by Herbert Hoover. It was featured as Paul & Jamie Buchman's apartment in the television show Mad About You.