Lexington Hotel (New York City)

The Lexington Hotel is at 509 Lexington Avenue, at the southeast corner with 48th Street, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It sits on the western portion of a city block bounded by Lexington Avenue to the west, 48th Street to the north, Third Avenue to the east, and 47th Street to the south. The hotel occupies a rectangular land lot with an area of . The site has a frontage of on Lexington Avenue and on 48th Street. Prior to the development of the Hotel Lexington, the site had been occupied by a brick "elevator building". The surrounding section of Lexington Avenue from 42nd to 52nd Street did not experience significant development until the late 19th century, when row houses and tenements, made of brick and brownstone, were developed in the area. == Architecture ==

The original architect was Schultze & Weaver. The hotel was designed in the Romanesque Revival style, with a facade of brick, limestone, and architectural terracotta. The hotel building contains setbacks to comply with the 1916 Zoning Resolution. It is variously cited as being 25, 27, This discrepancy is based on whether the towers atop the building, which have pyramidal roofs, are counted. Base The center of the Lexington Avenue facade contains a round arch, which was originally an entrance but has since been converted to a storefront. The arch is flanked by black-marble piers, and there is an overhanging marquee and a semicircular glass window directly above the entrance. On the second floor, the archway is flanked by windows with engaged columns on either side, which in turn are topped by tympana. In addition, the facade contains sculptural details such as griffins, rosettes, and six sculpted figures (two sitting, four standing) that signify the seasons. The third floor contains two arcaded windows, both of which are flanked by columns that contain winged lions at their bases and human faces at their capitals. The easternmost bay of the 48th Street entrance is recessed from the rest of the facade and contains a round arch with a service entrance. Directly above the service entrance, the second floor contains a pair of round-arched windows within a stone frame. The basement of the hotel initially contained a dining room known as the Silver Grill, which opened in 1932 and was converted into the Hawaiian Room in 1937. Jac Lessman redesigned the Hawaiian Room with a wall mural painted by Carl Koeck, By 2012, the hotel had three restaurants: a Latin-American cafe named Taina Café, a gourmet Chinese restaurant named S. Dynasty, and a casual eatery called Raffles. The lobby contained a reception desk with an illuminated clock behind it. The hotel also contains a two-story lobby with furnishings and art from the early 20th century, as well as a bar called the Mixing Room. Guestrooms The hotel originally had 801 guestrooms. By 2012, the hotel had 712 rooms. == History ==

In the 19th century, New York Central Railroad lines north of Grand Central Depot in Midtown Manhattan were served exclusively by steam locomotives, and the rising traffic soon caused accumulations of smoke and soot in the Park Avenue Tunnel, the only approach to the depot. After a fatal crash in 1902, the New York state legislature passed a law to ban all steam trains in Manhattan by 1908. The New York Central's vice president William J. Wilgus proposed electrifying the line and building a new electric-train terminal underground, a plan that was implemented almost in its entirety. The old Grand Central Depot was torn down in phases and replaced by the current Grand Central Terminal. Passenger traffic on the commuter lines into Grand Central more than doubled in the years following the terminal's completion. The terminal spurred development in the surrounding area, particularly in Terminal City, a commercial and office district created above where the tracks were covered. A 1920 New York Times article said, "With its hotels, office buildings, apartments and underground Streets it not only is a wonderful railroad terminal, but also a great civic centre." The Lexington was one of several hotels developed in Terminal City, along with other hostelries such as the Barclay, Commodore, Roosevelt, and Biltmore. Development and early years Tishman Realty & Construction had purchased the site at the southeast corner of Lexington Avenue and 48th Street, then quickly resold it to the Lexington Hotel Corporation, in the late 1920s. General J. Leslie Kincaid, the president of the American Hotel Corporation (parent company of the Lexington Hotel Corporation), announced in May 1928 that he would begin demolishing existing structures on the site and construct a hotel at a cost of $6.5 million. S. W. Straus & Co. placed a $4.5 million mortgage loan on the hotel that month. At the time, many hotels, commercial structures, and office buildings were being developed on Lexington Avenue north of 42nd Street. The Hotel Lexington opened on October 15, 1929, one of several hotels to be built in Midtown Manhattan during the 1920s. From the outset, customers were banned from tipping the waitstaff at the hotel's bar and restaurant; instead, a 10 percent gratuity was applied to all guests. The Lexington was one of 33 hotels in the American Hotel Corporation chain. The restaurant space in the basement was initially unoccupied until 1932, when the Silver Grill opened there. The National Hotel Management Company, operated by the New Yorker Hotel's manager Ralph Hitz, acquired the Lexington Hotel in March 1932. Reliance Property Management, headed by Frank W. Kriedel, was placed in charge of the Lexington's day-to-day operations. and two groups were created to represent the hotel's bondholders. the corporation was reorganized the next year. The hotel's Silver Grill was one of the most popular entertainment venues in a New York City hotel by the mid-1930s, offering live music during lunch and dinner. The Silver Grill was renovated into the Hawaiian Room in mid-1937. John M. Stoddard, who had been elected as Hotel Lexington Inc.'s president, appointed Charles E. Rochester as the new manager. Within a month, hotel officials began planning an outdoor cafe, The Hawaiian Room was extremely popular upon its opening, and it remained so in the early 1940s. Although Rochester became the president of Hotel Lexington Inc. in 1946, he continued to manage the Lexington. 1950s to 1970s Louis Schleiffer acquired the hotel at the end of December 1954. As part of the agreement, Rochester was to continue operating the hotel, and general manager George W. Miller remained in his position. At the time, the hotel contained 801 rooms and was assessed at $3.75 million. Before Schleiffer could finalize his purchase, real-estate investor Lawrence Wien agreed to buy Schleiffer's contract for the hotel. Wien planned to take title to the hotel on May 2, 1955, he planned to lease it to a syndicate led by Saul Hertzig. In turn, Hertzig planned to spend $250,000 renovating the guestrooms. After Wien took title that May, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance placed a $3.25 million first mortgage on the hotel. Rochester resigned from his position as the hotel's manager that July. Hotel Lexington Associates, which owned the hotel, announced in 1963 that it would replace the hotel's manually operated elevators with automatic cabs. To fund this renovation, the owner received a $140,000 mortgage loan on the property. After the Hawaiian Room's business declined sharply during the 1966 New York City transit strike, the room was closed temporarily, and the room was permanently shuttered after a fire the same year. The Chateau Madrid club moved into the Hawaiian Room's space in late 1968; the space could accommodate either 600 or 700 guests. Charles Hertzig served as the hotel's director until he died in 1968. By the 1970s, community college students were trying to encourage business at the Lexington Hotel. The Chateau Madrid was sold in 1974 but continued to operate at the hotel into the late 1970s. 1980s to 2000s Indian conglomerate Tata Group acquired the Lexington in September 1981, and the Taj Hotels chain began managing the hostelry. During this time, the Lexington operated as a mid-priced hotel. The New York Playboy Club relocated to the Chateau Madrid's former space in 1983, but the club was only housed at the hotel for a short time. In December 1999, Radisson Hotels announced that the hotel would operate as a Radisson franchise and would be renamed the Radisson Hotel New York-East Side. Highgate Oxford Hospitality took over the hotel's operation. The Lexington underwent a $518 million renovation, which was finished in 2001; several rooms were further renovated in 2004. LaSalle Bank placed a $100 million mortgage loan on the building in 2007. DiamondRock obtained a $170.4 million syndicated loan from a consortium of banks in March 2012. The hotel left the Radisson chain in September 2012, becoming an independent hotel known as The Lexington New York City. The Lexington was added to Marriott's "Autograph Collection" brand in mid-2013. In mid-2016, the LPC proposed protecting twelve buildings in East Midtown, including the Lexington Hotel, in advance of proposed changes to the area's zoning. On November 22, 2016, the LPC designated the Lexington Hotel and ten other nearby buildings as city landmarks. The hotel closed temporarily in early 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City. The sale occurred amid a decline in tourism due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Farkas reopened the hotel shortly afterward; prior to his purchase, the hotel had been closed since early 2020 due to the pandemic. In May 2024, the hotel was refinanced with a $155 million loan from Hudson Bay Capital. By 2025, Farkas and his partners were looking to sell the hotel for about $275 million. ==Notable tenants==

When the Lexington opened, some of the space on the southwest corner of the mezzanine was leased by the Sons of the American Revolution. The Hotel Lexington was home to many celebrities, including baseball player Joe DiMaggio, who resided at suite 1806; actress Marilyn Monroe, who lived with DiMaggio during their marriage; and actress Dorothy Lamour, who stayed at the hotel every time she visited the city. During the Hawaiian Room's existence, the room hosted numerous Hawaiian musicians such as Alfred Apaka, Kui Lee, Emma Veary, Mahi Beamer, and Hilo Hattie, as well as bands led by Andy Iona, Ray Kinney, and Lani McIntyre. == Critical reception ==

When the Lexington was completed, trade publications such as Architect, The American Architect, Architectural Forum, and Architecture and Building reported on the hotel. The hotel was also shown in the 2005 book Grand Hotels of the Jazz Age: The Architecture of Schultze & Weaver. Christopher Gray wrote for The New York Times in 2009 that the hotel's Lexington Avenue entrance was a "Frappuccino gauntlet" because there was a Starbucks on both sides, but that the flagpoles were a "disrespectful, throwaway cast. Better not to fly the flag at all." == See also ==