The Hotel St. Moritz was a luxury hotel located at 50 Central Park South, on the east side of

Sixth Avenue Sixth Avenue – also known as Avenue of the Americas, although this name is seldom used by New Yorkers, p.24 – is a major thoroughfare in New York City's borough of Manhattan, on which traffic runs northbound, or "uptown". It is commercial ...

, in

Midtown Manhattan Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan and serves as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Buildin ...

, New York City. The structure was extensively rebuilt from 1999 to 2002, and today it is a hotel/condominium combination known as The Ritz-Carlton New York, Central Park.

History

The Hotel St. Moritz was built on the site of the old

New York Athletic Club The New York Athletic Club is a private social club and athletic club in New York state. Founded in 1868, the club has approximately 8,600 members and two facilities: the City House, located at 180 Central Park South in Manhattan, and Travers ...

. The hotel was designed and built in 1930 by the Hungarian-born architect

Emery Roth Emery Roth ( hu, Róth Imre, July 17, 1871 – August 20, 1948) was an American architect of Hungarian-Jewish descent who designed many of the definitive New York City hotels and apartment buildings of the 1920s and 1930s, incorporating Beaux-A ...

, and constructed by the Harper Organization, representing Harris Uris and

Percy Uris Percy Uris (August 19, 1899 – November 20, 1971) was an American real estate entrepreneur and philanthropist who co-founded with his brother Harold Uris, the Uris Buildings Corporation. Biography Uris was born to a Jewish family, the son of Sad ...

. The estimated cost was about $6 million. In 1932, the

Bowery Savings Bank The Bowery Savings Bank was a bank in New York City, chartered in May 1834. By 1980, it had over 35 branches in the New York metropolitan area. In 1992, it was sold to H. F. Ahmanson & Co. for $200 million. The bank's first branch at 130 Bowe ...

took over the hotel and then sold it to the Engadine Corporation, led by the Greek-American hotel magnate S. Gregory Taylor (1888–1948). In 1950, the hotel was completely redecorated and redesigned, and, from the following year on, it housed the Café de la Paix, said to be the first sidewalk restaurant in New York City. In 1985,

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

purchased the 775-room hotel from its then owner,

Harry Helmsley Harry Brakmann Helmsley (March 4, 1909 – January 4, 1997) was an American real estate billionaire whose company, Helmsley-Spear, became one of the country's biggest property holders, owning the Empire State Building and many of New York's most ...

, for $72 million. Trump sold the hotel just three years later, in 1988, for $180 million to Australian billionaire

Alan Bond Alan Bond (22 April 1938 – 5 June 2015) was an English-born Australian businessman noted for his high-profile and often corrupt business dealings. These included his central role in the WA Inc scandals of the 1980s, and what was at the time ...

Bond had to surrender the property to his lender, F.A.I. Insurance, in 1989, when he was unable to repay their loan. In 1990, the hotel became operated by the Interstate Hotels Corporation from Pittsburgh. In January 1997, Donald Trump announced an agreement with the hotel's owners, F.A.I. Insurance, to gut the building, which was not a designated landmark and could, therefore, be altered in any way the owners liked, and convert it to a condominium, with the facade covered in glass. The hotel closed on April 20, 1998. However, before any work on the Trump project began, the hotel was sold again just over a week later on April 29, 1998, to hotelier

Ian Schrager Ian Schrager (born July 19, 1946) is an American entrepreneur, hotelier and real estate developer, credited for co-creating the "boutique hotel" category of accommodation. Originally, he gained fame as co-owner and co-founder of Studio 54. Ear ...

for $185 million. He reopened the hotel, without any remodeling, as part of his boutique hotel empire. He eventually announced plans for his own renovation of the hotel, but then the hotel was sold again, on November 6, 1999, to a development group, Millennium Partners, headed by

Christopher M. Jeffries Christopher Michael Jeffries is an American real estate developer, lawyer, and philanthropist who co-founded the national real estate firm Millennium Partners, known for the development of the Millennium Towers in New York, Boston, and San Francis ...

, which partnered with the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company to gut and remodel the structure as a combination hotel/condominium. The structure was then completely remodeled as ''The Ritz-Carlton New York, Central Park'', with the lower portion remaining a hotel and the top twelve floors converted to eleven enormous condominiums. It reopened in April 2002.

Architecture

The building has a height of and has 33 floors. When it operated as the St. Moritz, it had 1,000 rooms that were serviced by six elevators. Close to 400 windows are at Central Park South directly facing the park, in addition to over 300 more windows on 6th Avenue with a partial view of the park. The facade was clad in brown

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

, with the various towers of the building rising high above the park. In his review from 1931, W. Parker Chase described the hotel as "''a picturesque cliff, amidst towering trees to the north, and other soaring skyscrapers to the south.''" The aim was to design a cosmopolitan home combining Continental hospitality with American comforts and service. The spacious lobby was luxuriously furnished. On a wall in the lobby, which was of Levanto marble, hung a large painting of the city of

St. Moritz St. Moritz (also german: Sankt Moritz, rm, , it, San Maurizio, french: Saint-Moritz) is a high Alpine resort town in the Engadine in Switzerland, at an elevation of about above sea level. It is Upper Engadine's major town and a municipality in ...

Giovanni Giacometti Giovanni Ulrico Giacometti (7 March 1868 – 25 June 1933) was a Swiss painter. He was the father of artists Alberto and Diego Giacometti and architect Bruno Giacometti. Biography He was the fourth in a family of eight children. His father, ...

, a gift to the hotel from the Swiss Alps resort for which it was named. The mayor of St. Moritz, Carl Nater, presented the painting. The various guest rooms, suites, especially the pent house suites with cooling parks breezes and sumptuous furnishings were designed to impress the guests. Both rooms and suites could be rented unfurnished by those wishing to use their own belongings. A dancing salon and dinner was located on the 31st floor, with Omar Khayyam murals done by

David Karfunkle David Karfunkle (1880–1959) was an American artist. He is known for his mural, "Exploitation of Labor and Hoarding of Wealth", painted in 1936 at the Harlem Courthouse. Biography He was born in Vienna. He studied with Ludwig von Herterich, ...

. Laurence Emmons designed the interior. The original blueprints of the hotel by Roth are located in the

Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library The Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library is a library located in Avery Hall on the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University in the New York City. It is the largest architecture library in the world. Serving Columbia's Graduate Schoo ...

at Columbia University.

Venues

Rumpelmayer

The hotel had a number of restaurants and cafes. One of them was the Paris-based Austrian caterer Rumpelmayer, who was also Purveyor to the Imperial and Royal Court in Vienna (''k.u.k. Hoflieferant''), offering lunch and dinners in the tea room, grill and roof garden, where the St. Moritz orchestra entertained with both classic and syncopated music. The cafe was on the side of 59th street, offering views of Central Park. Popular treats at Rumpelmayer's were the coffee and ice creams. The rooms of Rumpelmayer's were designed by the German-born architect

Winold Reiss F. Winold Reiss (September 16, 1886 – August 23, 1953) was a German-born American artist and graphic designer. He was born in Karlsruhe, Germany, the second son of Fritz Reiss (1857–1914) and his wife. He grew up surrounded by art, as his fa ...

in the

art deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

style. Comedian Carol Burnett describes in her book ''This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection'' how in the summer of 1959 she spotted

Marlene Dietrich Marie Magdalene "Marlene" DietrichBorn as Maria Magdalena, not Marie Magdalene, according to Dietrich's biography by her daughter, Maria Riva ; however Dietrich's biography by Charlotte Chandler cites "Marie Magdalene" as her birth name . (, ; ...

at Rumpelmayer's.

In popular culture

In several episodes of ''

I Love Lucy ''I Love Lucy'' is an American television sitcom that originally aired on CBS from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, with a total of 180 half-hour episodes, spanning six seasons. The show starred Lucille Ball, her husband, Desi Arnaz, along with ...

'', the Hotel St. Moritz can be seen out of the Ricardos' bedroom window. During the sixth season of ''

The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show ''The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show'', sometimes called ''The Burns and Allen Show'', was a half-hour television situation comedy broadcast from 1950 to 1958 on CBS. It starred George Burns and Gracie Allen, one of the most enduring acts in ...

'', George and Gracie (along with their neighbors Harry and Blanche Morton and announcer Harry von Zell) stay at the St. Moritz. The Burns stay in Suite 2216. Unhinged magician Corky Withers, played by

Anthony Hopkins Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins (born 31 December 1937) is a Welsh actor, director, and producer. One of Britain's most recognisable and prolific actors, he is known for his performances on the screen and stage. Hopkins has received many accolad ...

, stays in the hotel during the first act of

Richard Attenborough Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough, (; 29 August 192324 August 2014) was an English actor, filmmaker, and entrepreneur. He was the president of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and the British Academy of Film and Televisio ...

's ''

Magic Magic or Magick most commonly refers to: * Magic (supernatural), beliefs and actions employed to influence supernatural beings and forces * Ceremonial magic, encompasses a wide variety of rituals of magic * Magical thinking, the belief that unrela ...

'' (1978). In the HBO Film 61*, it's the in-season home of

Mickey Mantle Mickey Charles Mantle (October 20, 1931 – August 13, 1995), nicknamed "the Commerce Comet" and "the Mick", was an American professional baseball player. Mantle played his entire Major League Baseball (MLB) career (1951–1968) with the New York ...

.new-york-city-yankees-history-mickey-mantle
/ref> The building appeared in the 2008 video game '' Grand Theft Auto IV''. It was also used in a mission of the game.

Gallery

File:The Ritz-Carlton New York, Central Park (Hotel St. Moritz) (51396627460).jpg, Entrance to the Hotel File:Hotel St Moritz NYC 005.JPG, The hotel as seen from Central Park overlooking the Pond File:Lower Central Park Shot 5 b.JPG, Closeup of the hotel as seen from Central Park File:Hotel St Moritz NYC 004.JPG, Closeup of the upper condominium portion of the hotel File:Hotel St Moritz NYC 003.JPG, The upper condominium portion of the hotel

References

External links

*
official website of the Ritz-Carlton Central Park
* {{coord, 40, 45, 55, N, 73, 58, 34, W, region:US-NY, display=title 1930 establishments in New York City Defunct hotels in Manhattan Hotel St. Moritz Hotel buildings completed in 1930 Hotels disestablished in 1994 Hotels established in 1930 Midtown Manhattan Sixth Avenue Skyscraper hotels in Manhattan 59th Street (Manhattan)