16 rarely-seen photos of Jackie Kennedy's glamorous NYC life: from Fifth Avenue penthouse to high-society restaurants

While Jacqueline Kennedy has long been seen as the quintessential first lady, forever  associated with the White House and D.C. (or retreats like Hyannis Port), she spent far more years of her life in New York City, which became her refuge after the assassination of her husband John F. Kennedy in November 1963.

Jacqueline was born in Southampton in July 1929, and spent her early childhood years in Manhattan, before studying at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie and becoming a fixture of the New York City social scene in the 1940s. She eventually transferred to George Washington University in Washington, D.C. — and worked as an "Inquiring Camera Girl" for the Washington Times-Herald — the city where she would ultimately meet her husband.

In July 1964, seven months after becoming a widow, she purchased a penthouse apartment on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, thus laying the foundation for her third act. 

Jackie's life as an editor

In September 1975, months after becoming a widow for the second time following the death of her second husband, Greek-Argentine business magnate and shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, Jackie — who had found herself restless and forlorn, holed up in her penthouse — eventually made her way to 625 Madison Avenue, which housed the New York editorial office of Viking Press. There, she was reporting for her first day of paid work since 1953.

What was largely perceived as a sinecure soon turned into a fruitful career, and she is credited with editing or initiating nearly 100 fiction and nonfiction books. She started at Viking as a consulting editor earning $200 per four-day week, encouraging the likes of former Chicago priest Eugene Kennedy and Sally Hemings author Barbara Chase-Riboud to write books.

She resigned from Viking two years later after they published Jeffrey Archer's Shall We Tell the President?, about a plot to assassinate a fictional president based on her brother-in-law Edward "Ted" Kennedy, and joined Doubleday as an editor. While her salary was not disclosed, the usual pay for an associate editor in a major publishing house at the time was between $15,000 and $20,000 a year. Among the books she acquired and edited was the Michael Jackson memoir Moonwalk, which sold half a million copies and topped the New York Times' bestseller list in 1988.

Jackie spent the last 30 years of her life in New York City, and remained at Doubleday until her death at 64 in 1994. She left an indelible legacy not only as an editor but as a New York City local, with a particular devotion to its arts and many landmarks, some of which today are named after her, among them the Central Park reservoir.

Below, Jackie's guide to New York City.

The Carlyle

Before Jackie made New York City her primary residence in her post-first lady years, she and JFK nonetheless maintained a home in the city, at the famed Carlyle Hotel. In addition to being one of the Upper East Side's most lavish hotels, The Carlyle — built in the 1930s and home to the legendary Bemelman's Bar — also houses roughly 60 private co-ops.

Though Jackie and JFK never owned an apartment at The Carlyle outright, they frequented the penthouse so often before and during the latter's presidency that it was nicknamed the "New York White House." With a monthly fee of $66,895, the duplex is approximately 3,000 square feet and features two bedrooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms as well as a 23-foot private terrace. Ownership also includes access to all of the hotel's amenities, among them daily housekeeping service, fitness center, salon, the spa, and parking garage.

In March 2026, the unit was purchased by billionaire media mogul Barry Diller, who has lived in The Carlyle for 30 years, for $11 million. "I've lived happily at the Carlyle for over 30 years, and when the penthouse came up I bought it in five minutes, and I hope to live in it happily forever," Diller, 84, told the Wall Street Journal at the time.

1040 Fifth Avenue

Less than a year after her husband's assassination, around her 35th birthday, Jackie purchased the top-floor unit of a 15-story building designed by famed architect Rosario Candela, who was known for his penthouses. Per a New York Times report at the time of purchase, July 1964, the apartment, on 85th Street and Fifth Avenue was bought for $200,000. 

Jackie's duplex apartment spanned a total of 5,300 square feet. It included five bedrooms and five-and-a-half baths, as well as two terraces and three fireplaces, and it overlooks Central Park, including a bridle path and the reservoir, which was renamed the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir following her passing in 1994.

She owned the apartment until her death from complications of aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Afterwards it was bought for $9.5 million by billionaire David Koch, who gutted the apartment and redid it entirely. It was later sold to hedge-fund manager Glenn Dubin in 2006 for $32 million.

The Met's Temple of Dendur

The Temple of Dendur, the ancient Egyptian temple built around 15 BCE housed in the Metropolitan Museum of art — which uses the ancient sandstone blocks as the backdrop for the Met Gala dinner — reportedly ended up at the museum in part thanks to Jackie. She allegedly urged JFK to save the monument and bring it to the U.S. in the 1960s, when it was being threatened by the Aswan High Dam off the Nile; although the proposal would provide irrigation and hydroelectric power to Egypt's growing population, it would also drown several ancient structures built along the river's banks. 

As part of an UNESCO fundraising campaign and rescue efforts to relocate various monuments, JFK had Congress approve a $10 million contribution, and in return, Egypt offered the U.S. the Temple. It was ultimately JFK's successor Lyndon B. Johnson who was tasked with choosing which U.S. institution would house it, with the Met ultimately prevailing, and Jackie accepting the gift on behalf of the U.S.

What's more, legend has it that Jackie — whose Fifth Avenue apartment looked into the Met — befriended the museum's night guards and arranged to keep the Temple illuminated during her Friday dinner parties, as a treat to guests.

Grand Central

Jackie was also a crucial part of the 1970s campaign to save Grand Central Terminal from demolition, and being replaced with a massive skyscraper. The famed station had become seedy and run-down, a reflection in part of the city itself, which was in the midst of a massive fiscal crisis, and on the brink of bankruptcy. Grand Central Terminal was slated to meet the same fate as the original Penn Station, which was razed to make way for Madison Square Garden, and become an office building designed by Marcel Breuer.

That is until Jackie, a strong advocate for historic preservation, along with the Municipal Art Society — which pioneered the Landmarks Preservation Law in 1965 as a result of the Penn Station razing — stepped in. Speaking at a 1975 press conference at the station's famed Oyster Bar, she said: "If we don't care about our past we can't have very much hope for our future," adding: "We've all heard that it's too late, or that it has to happen, that it's inevitable. But I don't think that's true. Because I think if there is a great effort, even if it's the eleventh hour, then you can succeed and I know that's what we'll do."

Jackie pleaded with Mayor Abraham Beame, who appealed the decision to strip Grand Central of its landmark status. The legal battle reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of preservation in 1978. Today, the main entrance into the terminal, underneath the Park Avenue Viaduct, opens into the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Foyer, which was renovated and renamed in 2014.

Mortimer's

Mortimer's, opened by Glenn Bernbaum on the northeast corner of Lexington Avenue and 75th Street in 1976, was the go-to bistro and watering hole for a generation of Upper East Siders, socialites and achievers alike, including Jackie herself. Bernbaum's inspiration was P.J. Clarke's, another Manhattan institution where Jackie was also a regular.

Despite its high-society clientele, Mortimer's was known for its surprisingly affordable prices (even for the time): $0.85 for a green salad and $2.10 for a burger with all the fixings, lettuce, onion, tomato, and side of french fries. Other famous regulars were Jackie's sister-in-law Patricia Kennedy Lawford, famed Truman Capote "Swan" C.Z. Guest, Oscar de la Renta, Joan Rivers, and Nan Kempner, among others. The restaurant closed in September 1998 upon the death of Bernbaum.