La maison
If the
WALLS COULD TALK T
By Melanie A. Cissone
here’s a new kid on the block. The Fifty-Fourth Street block west of Fifth Avenue—a location once reserved for early twentiethcentury millionaires of the Rockefeller ilk—has welcomed fashion designer Christian Siriano and his multifaceted boutique, The Curated, to the area. The new concept store took up residence at 5 West Fifty-Fourth Street, a beautiful and storied limestone townhome, on April 17. A fierce and freewheeling young designer—a man who shoots for the moon—Siriano has most certainly landed on a star, literally. Located just steps from tony Fifth Avenue, The Curated is housed in the Starr residence, the former home of distinguished
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neurologist Dr. Moses Allen Starr. An authority on the brain, the reputable and well-published Starr was a professor of neurology at Columbia University and served as president of both the New York Neurological Society and the American Neurological Association. Saint Luke’s Hospital, which fronted Fifth Avenue from Fifty-Fourth to Fifty-Fifth Streets, moved uptown in 1896, and its massive edifice was demolished, making available some of the city’s finest lots. At a time when few buildings existed north of Madison Square, and with Starr’s impending wedding on June 7, 1898, to social registrant Alice Dunning, the doctor bought the lot and commissioned architect Robert H. Robertson to design a home. The couple moved in a year later.
