InterContinental New York Barclay Hotel is a luxury hotel in the

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 Buildi ...

neighborhood of

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

In 1926, the

Vanderbilt family The Vanderbilt family is an American family who gained prominence during the Gilded Age. Their success began with the shipping and railroad empires of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and the family expanded into various other areas of industry and philanthr ...

funded the building of The Barclay, a luxury hotel in

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 ...

. The

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Mi ...

built the hotel on

air rights Air rights are the property interest in the "space" above the earth's surface. Generally speaking, owning, or renting, land or a building includes the right to use and build in the space above the land without interference by others. This lega ...

of its subsidiary the New York State Realty and Terminal Company and it was known to be elegant, glamorous and popular in social circles. The Barclay was designed by the architects Cross & Cross who also designed the Tiffany & Co. flagship store. In 1931, after the completion of

Grand Central Terminal Grand Central Terminal (GCT; also referred to as Grand Central Station or simply as Grand Central) is a commuter rail terminal located at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Grand Central is the southern terminus ...

, the Barclay got power from hydraulic tanks in the basement of Grand Central. In 1939, the

Cornell Club of New York The Cornell Club of New York, usually referred to as The Cornell Club, is a private club in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Its membership is restricted to alumni and faculty of Cornell University, family of Cornellians, business associates of ...

took over the entire third floor. In June 1978,

Loews Hotels Loews Hotels is an American luxury hospitality company that owns or operates 26 hotels in the United States and Canada. Loews' hotels and resorts are located in major North American city centers and resort destinations. Headquartered in New Yor ...

won a bidding war against a group of Middle Eastern investors, and purchased the Barclay, Roosevelt and Biltmore hotels for $55 million from the bankrupt

Penn Central The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania, New York Central and th ...

Transportation Company, which operated them through their Realty Hotels division. The following month, Loews re-sold the Barclay to

InterContinental Intercontinental is an adjective to describe something which relates to more than one continent. Intercontinental may also refer to: * Intercontinental ballistic missile, a long-range guided ballistic missile * InterContinental Hotels Group (I ...

Hotels, which renamed it The Barclay Inter-Continental. After a $32 million renovation, the hotel was renamed the Inter-Continental New York in 1982. Another restoration in 1995 restored the lobby and public areas at a cost of $20 million. The hotel celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2001 and was rebranded the InterContinental, The Barclay New York. In 2009, the hotel became the InterContinental New York Barclay. The hotel was renovated again in 2016.

Tenants

Caswell-Massey Caswell-Massey, founded in 1752, is the first fragrance and personal care product company in America. Originally, Caswell Massey started as an apothecary shop in Newport, Rhode Island, by a Scottish-born doctor named William Hunter. The main produ ...

had its flagship store in InterContinental New York Barclay for over 80 years. Caswell-Massey, the oldest chemist and perfumer in America, was the first and oldest tenant of the Barclay.

Famous guests

Bette Davis Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (; April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) was an American actress with a career spanning more than 50 years and 100 acting credits. She was noted for playing unsympathetic, sardonic characters, and was famous for her p ...

Gloria Swanson Gloria May Josephine Swanson (March 27, 1899April 4, 1983) was an American actress and producer. She first achieved fame acting in dozens of silent films in the 1920s and was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, most f ...

Mary Pickford Gladys Marie Smith (April 8, 1892 – May 29, 1979), known professionally as Mary Pickford, was a Canadian-American stage and screen actress and producer with a career that spanned five decades. A pioneer in the US film industry, she co-founde ...

Marlon Brando Marlon Brando Jr. (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) was an American actor. Considered one of the most influential actors of the 20th century, he received numerous accolades throughout his career, which spanned six decades, including two Academ ...

Jimmie Durante James Francis Durante ( , ; February 10, 1893 – January 29, 1980) was an American comedian, actor, singer, vaudevillian, and pianist. His distinctive gravelly speech, Lower East Side accent, comic language-butchery, jazz-influenced songs ...

Debbie Reynolds Mary Frances "Debbie" Reynolds (April 1, 1932 – December 28, 2016) was an American actress, singer, and businesswoman. Her career spanned almost 70 years. She was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer for her portra ...

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...

and

David O. Selznick David O. Selznick (May 10, 1902June 22, 1965) was an American film producer, screenwriter and film studio executive who produced '' Gone with the Wind'' (1939) and ''Rebecca'' (1940), both of which earned him an Academy Award for Best Picture. ...

all called the Barclay home. In 1992, when

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again ...

first ran for President, the Barclay was his New York headquarters.New York

References

External links

Official website

Corporate website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Intercontinental New York Barclay Hotel Hotel buildings completed in 1926 Hotels in Manhattan InterContinental hotels Midtown Manhattan Railway hotels in the United States