Photographs by Getty Images (Farley, Cruise and Rogers, Ronson, Richards); Patrick McMullan (Remaining).
This ten-story, 127-unit apartment house at 305 Second Avenue in Gramercy was built in 1902 as a gift to the city from J. P. Morgan and served as a birthing hospital—in the early 1900s, nearly 60 percent of hospital births in Manhattan took place here. Almost a century later, in the mid-eighties, the building turned rental, and now it’s been made over into a luxury project known as Rutherford Place, with apartments ranging from $600,000 to $3.5 million and a glittery list of former tenants in its wake. No one knows exactly why celebrities have flocked here. The location is certainly under the radar, and pretty, too, facing leafy Stuyvesant Square. And Rutherford Place is an unusual mix of duplexes and triplexes, with large apartments and unusual layouts—perhaps appealing to creative types looking for something more distinctive than a straightforward box. Whatever the lure, it’s fun to imagine David Lee Roth making small talk with Mimi Rogers and Judd Nelson in the elevator. Here, a roll call of past tenants.
*This article has been corrected to show that Patti Hansen is Keith Richards’ wife.