UPPER EAST SIDE — A legendary co-op apartment building the city's elite — including Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and John D. Rockefeller Jr. — have called home caught fire Wednesday afternoon, the FDNY said.
The 19-story art deco building at 740 Park Ave., dubbed the most "powerful apartment building in New York" by Business Insider in 2011, was engulfed in flames about 2:50 p.m. Wednesday.
The fire, which broke out on the sixth floor, was brought under control at 4:20 p.m., fire officials said.
Three firefighters suffered minor injuries, one with a laceration and two for smoke-related injuries. No one was in the affected apartment at the time of the blaze, and the rest of the building did not have to be evacuated, according to Deputy Fire Chief John Esposito.
“I was sitting my office and we just started smelling a lot of smoke," said Josie Forde, who works as personal assistant on a floor above the fire. “The smoke was really bad.”
The building has "been the most sought after residence in New York since 1929," according to Michael Gross, a journalist who published a book about the building in 2006.
"Even in the age of billionaire belt condos, a 740 Park apartment is a symbol of arrival at the highest level of achievement, in the achiever's favorite city."
Kennedy Onassis' grandfather built the co-op in 1929 and current residents include billionaire David Koch and Harry and Florence Wang, parents of designer Vera Wang.
In 2014, Israel Englander, the founder and chief executive officer of hedge-fund firm Millennium Management LLC, set the record for the highest price paid for a Manhattan co-op when he bought a duplex apartment in the building at 740 Park Ave. for $71.3 million from the French government, Bloomberg reported at the time.
Traffic was being re-routed Wednesday afternoon on the southbound side of Park Avenue from 72nd Street in front of the building.
