The Warwick New York is a luxury hotel at 65 West
54th Street, near
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
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 ...
. Constructed between 1925 and 1927, it is owned by
Warwick Hotels and Resorts.
Architecture
The 36-floor
Renaissance Revival
Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th century architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range o ...
building was designed by
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 ...
in association with the architectural firm of
George B. Post & Sons. The hotel's three-story base is covered with limestone and granite. The brown brick superstructure has two wings projecting to the street from the
property line
A unit of real estate or immovable property is limited by a legal boundary (sometimes also referred to as a property line or a lot line). The boundary (in Latin: ''limes'') may appear as a discontinuation in the terrain: a ditch, a bank, a hedge, a ...
. The wings set back several times, receding into the main slab—itself thinning into a top tower after further
setbacks. The overall shape of the structure has a strong vertical thrust.
History
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboya ...
built the Warwick New York in 1926 for $5 million. Long catering to the elite, Hearst built the 36-story residential tower to accommodate his
Hollywood friends as well as his mistress, the actress
Marion Davies
Marion Davies (born Marion Cecilia Douras; January 3, 1897 – September 22, 1961) was an American actress, producer, screenwriter, and philanthropist. Educated in a religious convent, Davies fled the school to pursue a career as a chorus girl ...
, who had her own specially-designed floor in the building.
The hotel's restaurant, Murals on 54, features the 1937 murals of American illustrator
Dean Cornwell
Dean may refer to:
People
* Dean (given name)
* Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin
* Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk
* Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean
Titles
* ...
. The famed murals were fully restored following a 2004 renovation of the restaurant.
The Warwick is also home to Randolph's Bar & Lounge, whose rosebud leitmotif references Hearst's purported nickname for Marion Davies.
The owner of the Warwick New York is Warwick Hotels and Resorts, which was founded in 1980 with the purchase of this hotel by its chairman, Richard Chiu.
Prominent guests
According to the Warwick Hotel website,
James Dean
James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931September 30, 1955) was an American actor. He is remembered as a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, ''Rebel Without a Cause' ...
,
Jane Russell
Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell (June 21, 1921 – February 28, 2011) was an American actress, singer, and model. She was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s. She starred in more than 20 films.
Russell moved from th ...
,
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was a British-American actress. She began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1950s. ...
,
Meyer Lansky
Meyer Lansky (born Maier Suchowljansky; July 4, 1902 – January 15, 1983), known as the "Mob's Accountant", was an American organized crime figure who, along with his associate Charles "Lucky" Luciano, was instrumental in the development of the ...
, and
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one ...
were frequent guests. Actor
Cary Grant
Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was an English-American actor. He was known for his Mid-Atlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing. He was one o ...
resided at the Warwick and lived in the hotel for 12 years. During
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...
1965 and 1966 Tours they stayed at the Warwick.
In September 2011 and 2012, Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ( fa, محمود احمدینژاد, Mahmūd Ahmadīnežād ), born Mahmoud Sabbaghian ( fa, محمود صباغیان, Mahmoud Sabbāghyān, 28 October 1956), and his delegation stayed at the Warwick for the
UN General Assembly
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; french: link=no, Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Curr ...
, which led to protests outside the hotel.
In popular culture
In the
''Mad Men'' season 4 episode, "
Hands and Knees
"Hands and Knees" is the tenth episode of the fourth season of the American television drama series ''Mad Men'', and the 49th overall episode of the series. It aired on the AMC channel in the United States on September 26, 2010. John Slattery sub ...
", Lane Pryce's father stays at the Warwick Hotel when visiting New York in August 1965.
References
External links
*
{{Hotels in New York City
1926 establishments in New York City
Emery Roth buildings
Hotel buildings completed in 1926
Hotels established in 1926
Hotels in Manhattan
Midtown Manhattan