Center for Inter-American Relations

History and architecture

This house is a part of that outstanding group of neo-Federal townhouses which extends along the west side of Park Avenue, between East 68th and 69th Streets, sometimes referred to as the "Pyne-Davison Blockfront" due to the uniform architectural quality of these houses.

No. 680 Park Avenue, formerly the handsome townhouse of Percy Rivington Pyne, occupies a conspicuous site at the northwest corner of East 68th Street and Park Avenue. It was designed In the neo-Federal style by the architectural firm of McKim, Moad & White, and built in 1909-11. Percy Pyne was a Mew York financier and philanthropist; he resided here until his death in 1929. The house was sold in 1947 to the Chinese Delegation to the United Nations which in turn sold it to the Soviet Mission to the United Nations.

In May 1964, the Soviet Mission moved to larger quarters and sold the building to a developer who began the following January to demolish it and two adjacent- townhouses to make way for a 31-story apartment building. When this became known, and after interior demolition had proceeded for ten days, there was widespread public protest against the loss of the last remaining block on Park Avenue of uninterrupted townhouses of uniformly high architectural quality.

At this critical juncture, the Marquesa de Cuevas, a granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., in a magnanimous gesture, later cited by the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, purchased the three almost doomed houses for $2,000,000, and on January 4, 1966 presented 680 Park Avenue to the Center for Inter-American Relations, which occupies It today. The demolition contractor had not had time to damage the exteriors, but it took eighteen months before the uprooted floors and missing items, such as fireplaces, were replaced and refurbished and the interiors made ready for occupancy.