Lexington Hotel, New York City

The Lexington Hotel opened on October 15, 1929, at 511 Lexington Avenue, on the southeast corner of East 48th Street, Midtown Manhattan. The hotel, originally operated by the Hotel Lexington Corporation, housed 801 rooms marketed as “modern luxury” at very moderate rates for out-of-town visitors. The hotel was home of several Hollywood celebrities, including Dorothy Lamour, Joe DiMaggio, Marilyn Monroe, Bill Clinton, tennis player Roger Federer, and Jennifer Lopez.

The 26-story skyscraper hotel was designed by Leonard Schultze and S. Fullerton Weaver in an Art Deco/neo-Romanesque style, with two pyramidal towers. This architectural firm also designed the Sherry-Netherland (1926-27, with Buchman & Kahn), the Pierre (1929-30), the Waldorf-Astoria (1929-31), and other prestigious hotels in New York City.

The Hotel Lexington, as originally called, went into foreclosure in March 1932, and Ralph Hitz's National Hotel Management Company operated the it until 1937, when Hotel Lexington Inc. took over.

The Silver Grill opened in the restaurant space in the basement in 1932 and soon became a popular entertainment venue. In 1937, the Silver Grill was transformed into the famous Hawaiian Room, featuring Polynesian cuisine and the best in Hawaiian music and dance. The Hawaiian Room closed in 1966 and was replaced in April 1968 by the Chateau Madrid, for nightclubbing Hispanophiles, moved from 42 West 58th Street to larger quarters in Lexington Hotel, in the old Hawaiian Room. Chateau Madrid was owned and operated by Angel Lopez and his sons Daniel and Robert. The elder Lopez originally opened the Havana-Madrid nightclub in 1937, in Manhattan. The Chateau Madrid was sold in 1974, but continued to operate at the hotel into the late 1970s.

Lawrence Wien bought the hotel in 1954 and leased it to a syndicate led by Saul Hertzig. Indian conglomerate Tata Group acquired the Lexington in 1981 and operated it for several years. In 1984, the base of the building, previously altered, was re-created according to a modified version of the original design.

In 1999, the hotel became the Radisson Hotel New York-East Side. DiamondRock Hospitality acquired the hotel in 2011, and the Lexington left the Radisson chain and became a Marriott's Autograph Collection hotel. Since 2021, a joint venture between MCR Hotels, Three Wall Capital, and Island Capital Group has owned the Lexington.