The Barclay Hotel
111 East 48th Street | also 526 Lexington Avenue, 520 Lexington Avenue, 518 Lexington Avenue | East Midtown | built 1926
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1925
Eliot Cross and railroad heirs develop the Barclay Hotel
The Barclay Park Corporation, led by architect Eliot Cross of Cross & Cross and businessman William Seward Webb Jr., leased the site from a New York Central Railroad subsidiary in January 1925. Their 14-story hotel, built in a Colonial style with an Italian Renaissance-style upper facade, opened on November 4, 1926.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1937
George Putnam moves into a Barclay suite to follow the search for his wife, Amelia Earhart
After Amelia Earhart disappeared in July 1937, her husband, the publisher George P. Putnam, moved into a suite at the Barclay and followed the newspaper accounts of the search. One clipping, headlined 'Sold Down the River,' essentially blamed him for her death, arguing that inadequate equipment kept her from finding Howland Island. His assistant Harold McCracken recalled that Putnam let the clippings slip from his hands into a wastebasket.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1937
Amelia Earhart announces her round-the-world flight at the hotel
Earhart held a press conference at the Barclay in February 1937 to announce plans for her attempt to fly around the world near the equator, the flight from which she would disappear later that year. Her husband, publisher George Putnam, later stayed at the hotel following her disappearance.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1938
The Cornell Club of New York leases the Barclay's third floor and has Cross & Cross remodel it
The Cornell Club of New York leased the Barclay's 30,000-square-foot third floor in October 1938, with a private entrance at 107 East 48th Street. According to the New York Times, Cross & Cross would remodel it with dining rooms, a grill, a library, lounges, game rooms and a ladies' department. The floor also held 39 bedrooms and suites for resident members.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1951
Jewelry worth $10,400 vanishes from a guest suite while a St. Louis family is out
A New York Times report of October 11, 1951 said jewelry worth $10,400 had vanished from a Barclay suite. Henry Rand, an executive of the International Shoe Company in St. Louis, was out with his wife and daughter at the time. The family found the theft when they returned around midnight.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1955
The Barclay boards guests' canaries in its lobby bird cage
On November 9, 1955, the New York Times noted that the Barclay boarded transient guests' canaries in its lobby cage, alongside the hotel's own yellow birds and finches. The cage became an attraction. The critic David Dunlap later recalled staying at the hotel with his mother in 1962, at age nine, and writing in his diary about a cage of nine songbirds in the lobby.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1966
The Manhattan Club moves from the Jerome Mansion into the Barclay's third floor
After the Cornell Club moved out in the mid-1960s, the Manhattan Club took over the Barclay's third-floor space. It relocated in November 1966 from its previous clubhouse, the former Jerome Mansion on Madison Avenue.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1978
Loews wins a court-approved bid for the Barclay, then resells it to InterContinental within weeks
Penn Central asked a federal court in April 1978 to approve a $45 million sale of the Biltmore, Barclay and Roosevelt hotels to Loews. A Middle Eastern consortium bid $50 million, Loews then raised its bid to $55 million, and the sale won a federal judge's approval in early June. Loews had planned to keep the Barclay and sell the others, but it resold the Barclay to InterContinental Hotels, a Pan Am subsidiary, in July.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1992
Bill Clinton's campaign sets up headquarters at the hotel
During his 1992 presidential run, Bill Clinton's campaign used the Barclay as its New York headquarters. The hotel had by then hosted decades of Cornell Club functions on its leased third floor and multiple Miss America competitions.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1993
The hotel agrees to spend $1.7 million on accessibility after a Justice Department inquiry
The U.S. Department of Justice investigated complaints that the InterContinental New York violated the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. In 1993 the hotel's owner, Saison Group, agreed to spend $1.7 million over five years on changes. They included ramps, wider doorways, braille signs and 21 wheelchair-accessible rooms. Putting in a ramp at the front entrance was harder because railroad tracks run beneath the building.
“…in 1993, Saison Group agreed to spend $1.7 million over the next five years to make the hotel more accessible…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2016
A $180 million renovation reopens the hotel
Constellation Hotel Holdings completed a $180 million renovation of the aging property between 2014 and 2016, reopening it in May 2016 as the InterContinental New York Barclay after earlier overhauls in 1982 and 1995 had already changed its name and interiors more than once.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- InterContinental New York Barclay HotelWikipedia
- The 1926 Barclay Hotel - 111 East 48th StreetDaytonian in Manhattan
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