Jabin Botsford/The New York Times  The skyline along Central Parkâs southern face today is poised to grow higher.  Central Park South has long been a reservoir of apartment-house construction, the expansive north views as attractive in the 1870s as they are now. The sweep of its history runs from the long-gone Bradley of 1877 to the modernist 240 Central Park South of 1940 â by way of the original Plaza Hotel of 1882 and the artistic Gainsborough of 1908. But as it turns out, it took awhile for developers to arrive at a full appreciation of Central Park Southâs dazzling prospect.  There was wide anticipation that the completion of Central Park in the late 1860s would spur millionaires to build their mansions facing its green space. But millionaires can be balky, and in 1876 The Real Estate Record and Guide fumed that lots facing the park had been âa mere football for speculative ventures,â without any significant mansion construction.  However, The Record and Guide did suggest that frontage along the park was much better suited to apartment houses, which it also frequently promoted.  A row-house developer, S. L. Bradley, took note of this and in 1877 built the Bradley, which appears to have been the first apartment house on what later came to be called Central Park South but was then plain old West 59th Street. The Record and Guide approved, calling the Bradley âan exemplar of the latest improvements.â These it had, but the building looked little different from a tenement house.  A few other multiple dwellings began to sprout, among them the original Plaza, which in 1882 was to be âthe largest and handsomest apartment house ever erected in this country,â according to The Record and Guide. That project, envisioned with 12 stories and 52 apartments, fell through, and the developers Phyfe and Campbell put up a nine-story confection of red brick, mansards and towers that could have been a Paris opera house. But the interior was never finished; the building was replaced by still other Plazas in 1890 and 1907.  If the Bradley was dwarfed by the shell of the Plaza, it was made microscopic by Jose de Navarroâs vast eight-building complex at Seventh Avenue. Twice the size of the Dakota, the 13-story, eight-building Navarro Flats was an early co-op, with seven-bedroom duplexes and entertaining rooms measuring as much as 19 by 22 feet.  But even a visionary has to get one brick on top of another, and construction dragged on into the 1880s. When creditors came after Mr. Navarro, he woke up from his dream. He lost the buildings, which were auctioned off, finished and rented out.  Despite its magnificent prospect, West 59th Street did not become Central Park South until 1896, by action of the city council. No fuss, lobbying, protest, endorsement, nothing. Very curious. Central Park West had been established about 1890.  In 1908 the magnificent 16-story Gainsborough Studios, at 222 Central Park South, joined the parade. The spectacular double-height studios on the front constitute the first recognition I have seen that the vista north to 110th Street was beginning to be considered special.  The year 1940 brought the stripped-down, modernist 240 Central Park South, built by the Mayer family, who are responsible for some of New Yorkâs most thoughtful apartment-house architecture. The complex 28-story tower rises from lower sections like the basalt monolith Shiprock in New Mexico, massive but brilliantly detailed, and called âhandsome and adroitâ by the hard-to-please Lewis Mumford in The New Yorker.  The developer Bernard Spitzer put up a lesser but no less unusual structure, the huge curved apartment house at 200 Central Park South, in 1963. The balconies, 225 feet wide, curve in from the corner, giving it a Barcelona feeling, and a tower in the rear has an uncanny resemblance to Frank Lloyd Wrightâs Johnson Wax Tower.  Mr. Spitzer, the father of former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, told me that he had been worrying and worrying about the design of the building when he flung his pencil down on the drafting paper, and the famous curve was born.  Down the block, at No. 230, the 17-story Southmoor House was built in 1938, and Ian Reisner, a resident, says it originally had 14 side-by-side duplexes, a touch unusual for the Depression. Southmoor House also had dressing rooms, but made a concession to the times with dining areas rather than rooms.  Over the last 20 years, Mr. Reisner has bought up half the apartments, combining many, and reclad the plain-Jane gray-brick front with cream and beige brick in a light glaze. Mr. Reisner, who is selling the renovated apartments, describes the old facade as âan unholy messâ and says the new one, which is in the Art Deco spirit of the old one, was âbeyond worth it.â  He has sold the air rights to the lot next door, which is now vacant and owned by Vornado and Extell. They are locked in a legal battle over the future of the land, but to judge by their other projects, like Vornadoâs fuzzy glass Lucida, at 85th and Lexington, and Extellâs super-tall One57, yet another new note will at some point be rung on Central Park South.
Developers did not at first understand that Central Park South had fabulous views. Even the name was late to the game. West 59th Street, anyone?