Library Hotel

299 Madison Avenue | Midtown | built 1913

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The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

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.

  1. 1913

    The James Graham Phelps Stoke house at Madison and 41st Street makes way for a new building

    By 1912 commerce was pushing into the Madison Avenue blocks that millionaires had once filled. The newly formed 299 Madison Avenue Co. bought the corner house of James Graham Phelps Stoke, which stood where Madison Avenue meets 41st Street on the northeast, along with property behind it, planning a modern building that would cost $110,000. Hill & Stout designed the replacement, which was ready for occupancy in 1913.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1913

    May 1

    The Fred F. French Company makes the new Madison Avenue building its headquarters

    The new building was ready for tenants on May 1, 1913. Daytonian in Manhattan singles out the Fred F. French Company as probably the most important early tenant: a self-reliant firm that combined architecture, real estate development and construction. As it set up headquarters here, architects, construction firms and realtors moved in too, among them the New York Realty Owners by 1914 and J. Romaine Brown Co., which stayed into the 1920s.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1913

    May 1

    Hill & Stout complete a slender neo-Gothic tower on Madison Avenue

    Architects Hill & Stout finished a twelve-story building at Madison Avenue and 41st Street on May 1, 1913, for $110,000, replacing the mansion of James Graham Phelps Stokes. Only 25 feet wide on Madison Avenue and 100 feet deep along 41st Street, the neo-Gothic building was an early example of a sliver skyscraper.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1919

    Real estate and aeronautics firms fill the new office building

    Early tenants of 299 Madison Avenue included the Fred F. French Company's real estate and construction offices and, by 1919, aviation-related firms such as the Shotwell Electric Weather Vane Company and the Aeronautic Library. A men's clothing store run by George G. Benjamin had opened at street level in 1916.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1921

    A mail-order outfit sells a one-dollar book of 'opportunities for profit' from the building

    In 1921 the Scientific Library at 299 Madison Avenue advertised Henry Woodhouse's book Five Hundred Opportunities for Profit and Distinction for $1.00, promising buyers a look at inventions, discoveries and future billion-dollar industries. It was one of several gimmicky mail-order firms in the building: Eldore Cosmetics sold shampoo by mail in 1943, and a firm called B & R was still advertising a dollar guide to gold-hunting in Popular Mechanics in 1963.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1950

    September 2

    Liberty Broadcasting System sets up its national offices in the building

    On September 2, 1950, the Liberty Broadcasting System established its national offices at 299 Madison Avenue. The radio network re-created Major League Baseball games as if they were live, working from Western Union ticker reports and adding sound effects like cheering crowds and the crack of a bat. Many listeners at home did not realize the commentators were not watching the games.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  7. 2000

    Henry Kallan converts the office building into the Library Hotel

    Hotelier Henry Kallan converted the building into a 60-room boutique hotel in 2000, adding two floors to the roof while leaving the original facade intact. Guest rooms are organized by the Dewey Decimal system, with more than $1 million spent on mahogany bookshelves and a 14th-floor Poetry Garden overlooking the New York Public Library.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  8. 2003

    OCLC sues the Library Hotel over its Dewey Decimal theme

    OCLC, which owns the Dewey Decimal Classification system, sued the Library Hotel in 2003 over its use of the scheme to organize guest rooms. The parties settled, letting the hotel keep arranging its ten floors by Dewey Decimal categories, from mathematics to botany.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 178 buildings with stories in Midtown