The Lexington Hotel, Autograph Collection is a hotel in Midtown

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

History

The Lexington Hotel opened in 1929 as the Hotel Lexington, at the height of the Manhattan midtown hotel boom, 1920s to the 1930s. The hotel opened with a promise by General

J. Leslie Kincaid James Leslie Kincaid (November 28, 1884 – April 10, 1973) was an American lawyer, politician, businessman, and military officer from New York (state), New York. Early life and education Kincaid was born on November 28, 1884 in Syracuse, New Yor ...

, president of the American Hotel Corporation, to provide a thoroughly modern house of refined atmosphere and exceptional service – without the annoyance and confusion that is often experienced in hotels catering to large assemblages. The original architect was

Schultze & Weaver Schultze & Weaver was an architecture firm established in New York City in 1921. The partners were Leonard Schultze and S. Fullerton Weaver. History Leonard B. Schultze was born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 5, 1877. He was educated at the Cit ...

whose first major commission job had been the large Los Angeles hotel today known as the Millennium Biltmore. Their later work included the

Atlanta Biltmore Hotel The Atlanta Biltmore Hotel and Biltmore Apartments is an historic building located in Atlanta, Georgia. The complex, originally consisting of a hotel and apartments, was developed by William Candler, son of Coca-Cola executive Asa Candler, with ...

, and the Coral Gables Biltmore Hotel. The firm also designed the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach and the Miami Nautilus Hotel. They designed several noted landmark hotels within New York City, including the

Park Lane Hotel The Sheraton Grand London Park Lane is a 5 Star hotel on Piccadilly, London. The hotel opened in 1927 as The Park Lane Hotel to designs by architects Adie, Button and Partners, in a grand Art Deco style, and was constructed by the developer ...

, the

Waldorf Astoria The Waldorf Astoria New York is a luxury hotel and condominium residence in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. The structure, at 301 Park Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets, is a 47-story Art Deco landmark designed by architects Schultz ...

, the

Pierre Hotel The Pierre is a luxury hotel located at 2 East 61st Street, at the intersection of that street with Fifth Avenue, in Manhattan, New York City, facing Central Park. Designed by Schultze & Weaver, the hotel opened in 1930 with 100+ employees, n ...

and

the Sherry-Netherland The Sherry-Netherland is a 38-story apartment hotel located at 781 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 59th Street in the Upper East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was designed and built by Schultze & Weaver with Buchman & Ka ...

. The Normanesque

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based ceramic glaze, unglazed or glazed ceramic where the pottery firing, fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, a ...

figures that decorate the Lexington Avenue entrance are reminiscent of those found on Notre Dame in Paris. Rows of

-winged lions adorn the building’s

façade A façade () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a Loanword, loan word from the French language, French (), which means 'frontage' or 'face'. In architecture, the façade of a building is often t ...

. Beneath a metal canopy, inscribed with the hotel’s name, visitors pass through the expansive glass doors into the spacious marbled-floored lobby. In the 1930s, the Lexington was run by hotel industry pioneer

Ralph Hitz Ralph (pronounced ; or ,) is a male given name of English, Scottish and Irish origin, derived from the Old English ''Rædwulf'' and Radulf, cognate with the Old Norse ''Raðulfr'' (''rað'' "counsel" and ''ulfr'' "wolf"). The most common forms ...

's National Hotel Management Company. On 21 March 1992 Dazilyn Williams, a maid working at the hotel, was found with her throat slit in the bathtub of room 1522. The following month Nelson Rodriguez was arrested for her murder; police believed that he had been robbing the room when she came in to clean it.

Present day

The property now belongs to

Marriott Marriott may refer to: People *Marriott (surname) Corporations * Marriott Corporation, founded as Hot Shoppes, Inc. in 1927; split into Marriott International and Host Marriott Corporation in 1993 * Marriott International, international hote ...

’s "

Autograph Collection Autograph Collection is a group of independent upper-upscale to luxury hotels within the Marriott International portfolio. The properties are independently owned and operated under the Autograph Collection name. History To grow in the post-200 ...

" of fifty hotels that have historic qualities to them. In 2014, a $46 million renovation was completed that restored historic architectural elements including the original

brass Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other with ...

elevator doors with

songbird A songbird is a bird belonging to the suborder Passeri of the perching birds (Passeriformes). Another name that is sometimes seen as the scientific or vernacular name is Oscines, from Latin ''oscen'', "songbird". The Passeriformes contains 500 ...

motifs.

Significance

The Hotel Lexington was home to many famous restaurants, nightspots and celebrities, including: *

Joe DiMaggio Joseph Paul DiMaggio (November 25, 1914 – March 8, 1999), nicknamed "Joltin' Joe", "The Yankee Clipper" and "Joe D.", was an American baseball center fielder who played his entire 13-year career in Major League Baseball for the New York Yank ...

, baseball legend, who resided at the hotel between 1957 and 1962, while he was affiliated with the Monette Company. *

Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe (; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; 1 June 1926 4 August 1962) was an American actress. Famous for playing comedic " blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as wel ...

lived here with DiMaggio during their brief marriage in Suite #1806. *

Dorothy Lamour Dorothy Lamour (born Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton; December 10, 1914 – September 22, 1996) was an American actress and singer. She is best remembered for having appeared in the '' Road to...'' movies, a series of successful comedies starring Bing ...

, Hollywood celebrity The hotel evolved and in the 1930s the “Hawaiian Room” opened in what is now "LQ". The Hawaiian Room was identified with entertainer

Arthur Godfrey Arthur Morton Godfrey (August 31, 1903 – March 16, 1983) was an American radio and television broadcaster and entertainer who was sometimes introduced by his nickname The Old Redhead. At the peak of his success, in the early-to-mid 1950s, Godf ...

. Godfrey broadcast his radio show live from the Hawaiian Room. The hotel contained other venues such as the "Paul Revere Tavern," "Denim & Diamonds," "Chateau Madrid," and the "Playboy’s Empire Club" (bunnies with male counterparts called “Rabbits”) - in the 1980s.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lexington Hotel NYC 1929 establishments in New York City Autograph Collection Hotels Hotels in Manhattan Midtown Manhattan