Warwick New York Hotel

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Warwick New York Hotel
Warwick New York Hotel

The Warwick New York Hotel is located at 65 West 54th Street, off the Avenue of Americas in Manhattan, New York City. The Warwick Hotel was originally commissioned by William Randolph Hearst in 1926[1] as a guesthouse for his Hollywood and theatrical friends, with a penthouse for his mistress Marion Davies. Hearst developed the plan in partnership with the Hearst Publications editor Arthur Brisbane, who had commissioned the Ritz Tower residential hotel, opened in 1925, capped by a similar extravagant penthouse for himself, using Emery Roth as architect: Roth, who had called upon the experienced services of Thomas Hastings, the surviving partner of the Beaux-Arts firm Carrère and Hastings to refine the massing and style of the Ritz Tower,[2] was commissioned again for the Warwick. The hotel was built across the street from the Ziegfeld Theatre, another cooperative project of Hearst and Brisbane.

Today the 33-storey hotel has 359 guest rooms and 67 suites, as well as the restaurant, Murals on 54th. It is part of the Warwick International Hotels chain which was founded with its purchase in 1980.

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[edit] Location

The Warwick is located on West 54th Street across the street from the Museum of Modern Art, and just blocks from Broadway, Carnegie Hall, Central Park, and Rockefeller Center.

[edit] Prominent guests

The Warwick was designed with a lobby of modest size, intended to maintain a residential feel and limit access to press and spectators. For years Paramount Studios had quietly housed their stars at the Warwick, when The Beatles, during their stay, gave a press conference on August 13, 1965 prior to performing at Shea Stadium on August 15, that set off the first public expression of Beatlemania at the discreet Warwick. In the summer of 1967 The Monkees occupied the penthouse suite, while a small room down the hall housed their opening act, Jimi Hendrix.[3] Other guests have included Irving Berlin, Elvis Presley, and Cary Grant, who lived in a suite for twelve years.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ It opened for business 10 December 1926. (The New York Times "The Warwick Opened." 10 Decembewr 1926).
  2. ^ Carter B. Horsley, "The Midtown Book: The Ritz Tower"
  3. ^ David Sygall, "Hendrix at the Warwick Hotel, 1967"

[edit] External links