The Little Renting Cottage

 
Prospect Tower was just beginning to show progress in the spring of 1927 when the little renting cottage opened. It was just as modest as the name sounded, a tiny cottage built beside the hulking No. 45.     

It seems today an odd site, so close to No. 45 that the clanging of the construction and the occasional falling debris interrupted conversations. But people liked seeing their building being constructed, and before No. 45 opened, it had been totally rented out.

After Prospect Tower was built, the little renting cottage had to move and a place was found for it in the Middle Park. Here it's seen with the rising, almost-done No. 25 behind it.

Built in the same simple style as the original, the cottage promised sunny rooms and something more. The sign along the roofline, after all,  read FRED F. FRENCH INVESTING COMPANY.

Above, the cottage from Tudor City's point of view. There was something appealing about renting an apartment in Manhattan from an old-fashioned looking cottage.

Then on June 14, 1938, the rental offices moved into a rowhouse on 42nd Street. It was no longer a 'cottage,' but it had a great eleven-year run.

No. 332 E. 42nd Street sported a canopy over its entrance, suggesting a certain panache.

Left to right: Grace Kelly walks by No. 332 during her modeling days; inside the rental office, things look rather swank.

After World War II, the arrival of the UN to the neighborhood brought about many changes to Tudor City. The rowhouses lining 42nd Street were demolished, and the rental office moved to the former Coffee House in No. 25 in 1953. This office didn't have that much to do: Tudor City had been under rent control since 1942. Nobody moved.