FAMOUS FACES
JOHNNY CARSON
The cultural phenomenon and King of Late-Night Television bought unit 35/36E in 860 in 1962 and owned it until The Tonight Show moved to California 10 years later. His two-level, 5,000-square-foot corner duplex had six bedrooms, an interior elevator, a floating curved staircase and unobstructed southern views of the East River.
"This is a building of high achievers,” Carson's wife Joanna told Time Magazine in 1969. “People who live here are not climbing. They have arrived."
ROBERT F. KENNEDY
The American politician and lawyer served as the 64th United States attorney general from January 1961 to September 1964, and as a U.S. senator from New York from January 1965 until his assassination in June 1968, when he was running for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Like his brothers John F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy, Robert remains an icon of modern American liberalism.​
GLORIA VANDERBILT
During the 1970s, the fashion icon (and mother of TV's Anderson Cooper) lived in a south-facing unit and used a separate north-facing one as a studio.
Its "artistic, print-lined, fabric-decorated interior" was considered a hallmark of her influential design style at the time. Vogue called Vanderbilt's U.N. Plaza apartment a “print-lined floating bubble where her works co-existed happily with her possessions.”
WALTER CRONKITE
The legendary news anchor known as The Most Trusted Man in America owned a five-bathroom, three-bedroom co-op on the 25th floor of 870. He enjoyed his apartment's sweeping views of the Chrysler Building and East River and had a penchant for Early American decór, filling his space with "a lot of masculine things" such as big desks, big couches and leather chairs. The apartment "looked like Walter,” said a friend.
TRUMAN CAPOTE
The witty and flamboyant author/novelist bought his 22nd-floor U.N. Plaza apartment in 1965 with his In Cold Blood royalties and lived there until he passed away in 1984. “My theory is that you can stay in this building and never leave it," he told Time in 1969. "You can go from one dinner to another for a month without duplicating.” Capote's glamorous apartment boasted a red-on-red dining room and had panoramic views of the United Nations building and lower Manhattan. It also had a "prominently displayed pink china jar labeled 'Opium'” — a housewarming present from Jacqueline Kennedy.
BONNIE CASHIN
A pioneer in the design of American sportswear, she created innovative, uncomplicated clothing that catered to the modern, independent woman beginning in the post-war era through to her retirement from the fashion world in 1985.
WILLIAM P. ROGERS
An American politician, diplomat, attorney and member of the Republican Party, Rogers served as Deputy Attorney General of the United States and then Attorney General of the United States in the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower, and as the Secretary of State in the administration of Richard Nixon. Rogers was an ally of Nixon, until he was succeeded by Henry Kissinger. At the time of his death in 2001, Rogers was the last surviving member of Eisenhower's cabinet.
YUL BRYNNER
Yuliy Borisovich Briner, known professionally as Yul Brynner, was a Russian and American actor, known for his portrayal of King Mongkut in the Rodgers and Hammerstein stage musical The King and I (1951) and its 1956 film adaptation, as well as starring roles in The Magnificent Seven and Westworld. He became known for his shaved head, which he maintained as a personal trademark long after adopting it for The King and I.
CLIFF ROBERTSON
With a career in film and television that spanned over six decades, Robertson portrayed a young John F. Kennedy in the 1963 film PT 109, and won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the film Charly.
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Younger generations will remember him as Spider-Man's beloved Uncle Ben, who lent his humble gravitas the immortal lesson: With great power comes great responsibility.
RICHARD AVEDON
As an American fashion and portrait photographer, Avedon worked for Harper's Bazaar, Vogue and Elle specializing in capturing movement in still pictures of fashion, theater and dance. An obituary published in The New York Times said that "his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century".
