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Inside Jackie Kennedy’s Fifth Avenue Penthouse: Park Views, Posh Amenities and a Lasting Legacy

Karen Aanonsen

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©1999 RAMEY PHOTO; Dennis Brack/Newscom/The Mega Agency
©1999 RAMEY PHOTO; Dennis Brack/Newscom/The Mega Agency

Jacqueline Kennedy knew a thing or two about swanky addresses.

Following her time at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — which was tragically cut short by President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 — the former first lady moved to 1040 Fifth Avenue.

Then a 35-year-old single mom of two, Caroline and John Jr., she paid roughly $200,000 for a five-bedroom, five-and-a-half-bathroom apartment on the 15th floor of the 1920s property, according to a New York Times report from 1964.

As the article pointed out, even Jackie had to undergo a board review before the cooperative sale could be approved, complete with $14,000-a-year maintenance fees.

©1999 RAMEY PHOTO
©1999 RAMEY PHOTO

The penthouse was apparently worth the wait: She called it home for 30 years.

Boasting 23 windows, per the New York Times, her posh NYC quarters overlooked both 85th Street and Central Park.

There were even views of the park’s eponymous reservoir — a favorite jogging spot of the book editor’s.

(In 1994, following her death at age 64, it was renamed the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir in the philanthropist’s honor, notes the Central Park Conservancy.)

©1999 RAMEY PHOTO
©1999 RAMEY PHOTO

When she wasn’t enjoying the local outdoors, Jackie and her children lived alongside 30 other families in their granite building, per the New York Times.

The family’s personal space measured 5,300 square feet, according to the Observer, with a library, a conservatory, a dining room, two terraces and three fireplaces.

It was among those rooms that she spent her final days after being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the New York Times reported in the widow’s 1994 obituary.

Until the very end, the Fifth Avenue oasis seemingly provided Jackie with a sense of normalcy amid an extraordinarily abnormal life.

“I think my biggest achievement is that, after going through a rather difficult time, I consider myself comparatively sane,” she’s quoted as saying, per The Washington Post.

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