Barclay Hotel, Lexington Avenue, New York City

The InterContinental Barclay Hotel is located on Lexington Avenue, at 111 East 48th Street, Midtown Manhattan. The Barclay Hotel formally opened on November 4, 1926, as a luxury hotel operated by Realty Hotels, subsidiary of the New York Central Railroad, for more than six decades. Among its notable guests, Bette Davis, Gloria Swanson, Mary Pickford, Marlon Brando, Jimmy Durante, Debbie Reynolds, Ernest Hemingway, David O. Selznick and Bill Clinton.

In January 1925, The Barclay Corporation leased a parcel of land on Lexington Avenue, between 48th and 49th Streets, from New York Central Reality and Terminal Corporation, owned by the Vanderbilt family. The Grand Central Terminal opened in 1913 and the area was known as the Terminal City. Other famous hotels also operated in the area, including the Lexington Hotel (opened in 1929), Waldorf-Astoria (1931), Hotel Shelton, Montclair, Beverly Hotel (later Benjamin) and others.

The 14-story Barclay Hotel was designed by Cross & Cross in the Colonial style, arranged in the shape of the letter "H", with light courts facing north and south. The designer R. T. Haines Halsey oversaw the interior design along with Mrs. Charles Sabin, who headed the hotel's interior advisory committee. Halsey and Sabin both contributed some of their own artwork to the hotel's design collection. The furnishing and decorations were in the American colonial period. There were two dining rooms on the main floor of the hotel and a terrace where tea was served. The lobby floor was made of Bardiglio marble with a black-and-gold border. The hotel had originally 842 guestrooms.

At the opening in 1926, Eliot Cross was the chairman of the Board of Directors, John F. Sanderson was the managing director of the hotel and Fred Swoboda, formerly of the Ritz-Carlton, was maître d'hôtel.

The New York chapter of the Delphian Society was organized at the Barclay in 1935 and met there through the 1930s. In 1938, the Cornell Club of New York leased the entire third floor of the Barclay Hotel. The hotel also hosted several other clubhouses. By the 1940s, William H. Rorke was the hotel manager. In the 1950s, a bird cage anchored the center of the lobby, with real birds singing and chirping.

Loews Hotels purchased the hotel in June 1978 and resold it to InterContinental Hotels, which renamed the Barclay as the Inter-Continental New York in 1982 after an extensive renovation. In 2009, it was rebranded as the InterContinental New York Barclay. The hotel reopened in 2016 after a 20-month renovation.