The 1926 Barclay Hotel - 111 East 48th Street

 

photograph by Ajay Suresh

The renovation of Grand Central Depot to Grand Central Terminal sparked a burst of development in the neighborhood, known as Terminal City.  A second wave erupted in the 1920s and included a 14-story "stores and apartment hotel," as described in the plans.  Fred Bielsaski was president of the Barclay Park Corporation.  In 1925, the syndicate hired the architectural firm of Cross & Cross to design the $3 million project at the northwest corner of 48th Street and Lexington Avenue.  (Millionaire architect Eliot Cross not only designed the building, he sat on the hotel's board of directors with highly-visible moguls like W. Seward Webb Jr., John R Todd and James M. Todd, and Weld M. Stevens.)

Completed the following year, the U-shaped, Renaissance Revival-style structure's midsection was clad in brown brick atop a three-story stone base.  The single-story, stone-faced top section sat upon a molded cornice and was decorated with massive full-relief rosettes and Renaissance-inspired panels.

photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

On April 10, 1926, The New York Times reported, "The new Barclay Hotel at 111 East Forty-eighth Street will be formally opened at a dinner and dance on Oct. 21."  But on the day of that article, the first residents began moving in.  The Barclay Hotel was a residential hotel--meaning that residents had long-term leases, like apartment dwellers, but enjoyed the amenities of transient hotels, like maid service.

New York Evening Post, September 25, 1926 (copyright expired)

Among the initial residents were Morgan Belmont and his wife, the former Margaret Frances Andrews.  Belmont was born in 1892, the son of millionaire August Belmont Jr. and Bessie Hamilton Morgan.  The couple's daughter, Margaret Andrews Morgan Belmont, was born in 1917.  The family's country home was in Westport, Long Island.

Morgan Belmont in his World War I Army uniform.  War Records of the Knickerbocker Club 1914-1918 (1922 - copyright expired)

Alice Wheelock and Erwin Hoy Watts moved in following their wedding on October 1, 1927.  Alice was the granddaughter of Dr. and Mrs. Morgan Dix on her maternal side and Dr. and Mrs. George G. Wheelock on her father's.  Born in 1903, the young groom was the son of cotton goods magnate Ridley Watts and was a member of the Chemical National Bank.

Radio stations were often installed in upscale hotels and on October 11, 1927, The New York Times reported, "An hour of luncheon music will be broadcast at 1 o'clock daily except Sunday over WABC direct from the Barclay Hotel."

Andrew H. Nutting, another initial resident, was the son of Andrew Jackson Nutting, founder of A. J. Nutting & Co.  The senior Nutting died on September 4, 1924 and his estate was divided equally among Andrew and his two sisters.  Like the Morgan Belmonts, residents of the Barclay Hotel spent their summers in their country homes or fashionable resorts.  On March 13, 1928, The New York Times reported that Andrew H. Nutting had purchased "the Hanna property at Boar's Head, Rye Beach, N. H., and will erect a residence there this Spring."

A postcard depicted the Nutting country home.

Resident Robert J. Upson graduated from Princeton University in 1921.  He joined the National Bank of Commerce in 1923 and became its assistant trust officer in 1927.  The unmarried 29-year-old went to Flushing, New York on March 29, 1928 to visit Charles G. Muller.  The next night at around 11:00, he left in a taxicab heading for the train station to return to Manhattan.

The following morning, his body was found on the elevated railroad crossing about 200 yards from the Flushing station.  Mysteriously, The New York Times reported, "he had been run over by a train at about 11:30 o'clock Thursday evening."

The Barclay Hotel reserved a number of suites for well-heeled transient guests.  Arthur Morgan Smith was described by The New York Times as a "Harvard graduate and wealthy Clevelander."  On April 10, 1929, he attended a bridge party held by socialite Florence Schuette in the Hotel Marguery.   Smith was smitten by another guest, Mrs. Robert L. Brown, who was staying in the Plaza Hotel.  The party broke up at just before 2:30 a.m.  A guest offered Smith a ride, "but he refused, saying it was just a short distance to his hotel, and he would walk," reported The New York Times.  In fact, Smith was intent on escorting Mrs. Brown to her hotel.

Equally intent on accompanying Mrs. Brown was another guest, Samuel E. Bell, a "well-to-do oil producer."  Bell won the argument, but not before shoving Smith to the pavement as he climbed into a taxi with Mrs. Brown.  Smith was arrested for intoxication a few minutes later on Park Avenue.  Later it became clear that he was not drunk--he had suffered a fractured skull in the fall to the curb.  He died the following afternoon.

Two views of the Art Deco cafe.  photographs by Samuel H. Gottscho, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The ballroom and meeting rooms could be rented by groups or, in some cases, individuals.  Such was the case in February 1937 when Amelia Earhart held a press conference to announce her intentions to fly a Lockheed Electra airplane around the world.  Fred Noonan, a Pan American Airways navigator, she said, would accompany her as navigator.

Ironically, following Earhart's disappearance in July her husband, George P. Putnam, moved into a suite in the Barclay Hotel where he followed the newspaper accounts of the search for his wife.  The New York Times said, "One, bearing the headline 'Sold Down the River,' essentially blamed Putnam for his wife's death, asserting that her failure to find Howland Island was because of inadequate equipment."  According to his assistant, Harold McCracken, "Then he took all the clippings and let them slip out of his hands into a wastepaper basket."

In October 1938, the Cornell Club of New York leased the 30,000-square-foot third floor.  It was accessed by a private entrance at 107 East 48th Street.  On October 17, The New York Times reported that Cross & Cross would remodel the floor "to provide a main dining room and three private rooms, grill, library and lounges, card and billiard rooms and a ladies' department."  There were, as well, 39 bedrooms and suites for resident members.

By midcentury, the Barclay Hotel was increasingly hosting transient guests.  The wealthy visitors, in some instances, became attractive targets for robbers.  On October 11, 1951, The New York Times reported that $10,400 worth of jewelry had "disappeared" from a suite.  Henry Rand, vice president of the International Shoe Company in St. Louis, and his wife and daughter had stepped out.  When they returned around midnight, they discovered the theft. 

Six months later, on April 29, 1952, the newspaper reported, "Jewelry valued at $2,700 was stolen last night from Sheik Asad Al Facih, Saudi-Arabian Ambassador to the United States."  Included in the heist were "an Indian necklace set with rubies and pearls and valued at $2,000, and a man's gold-and-ruby ring valued at $650 and a man's wedding ring valued at $50," said that article.  The total value would translate to about $32,700 today.

At the time of the article, the management offered a unique service to its transient guests.  On November 9, 1955, The New York Times noted, "The Barclay Hotel cares for transient's canaries; boards them in the lobby cage with its own yellow birds and finches."  That cage had become an attraction.  Decades later, architectural critic David W. Dunlap would recall his visit to New York City with his mother at the age of nine in 1962.  They stayed at the Barclay Hotel and Dunlap wrote in his diary, "In the middle of the lobby there is a cage of 9 song birds."

The Barclay Hotel continued to be the permanent home to well-heeled residents over the subsequent decades, among them actress Amy Busby who debuted on the stage in 1889; Municipal Court Justice George L. Genung; and author Norman Beasley.

The Cornell Club moved out in the mid-1960s and the third floor space was next occupied by the Manhattan Club, who moved from its clubhouse, the former Jerome Mansion on Madison Avenue in November 1966.  

In July 1978, InterContinental Hotels purchased the Barclay Hotel.  The following year, $37 million in financing was acquired "in connection with the purchase and planned renovation," reported The New York Times.  Saying the renovations would be completed in 1981, the article noted, "the company planned to make the Barclay the flagship of its worldwide chain of 80 hotels."

The hotel was renovated again, re-opening in April 2016.  In reporting on the renovations in The New York Times on February 28, David W. Dunlap remembered the cage of canaries and finches," saying, "the song birds are long gone."  The InterContinental designers, however, gave a nod to the beloved fixture.  The new revolving door mimicked the cage with swirling birds.

photo by Pablo Enriquez for The New York Times, April 28, 2016

Two new ballrooms on the second floor necessitated the removal of the lobby's dome.  The exterior of the hotel, "as confident and debonair as Gene Kelly on a dance floor," as described by journalist Christopher Gray, was not touched.

photograph by Jim Henderson

many thanks to reader Kevin Cross for suggesting this post.