The Pierre
797 5th Avenue | also 2 East 61st Street, 795 5th Avenue, 796 5th Avenue | Upper East Side | built 1930
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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.
- 1930
Charles Pierre opens the Pierre hotel on the site of the Gerry mansion
Corsican-born restaurateur Charles Pierre Casalasco joined a group of Wall Street backers, including Otto Kahn and Walter Chrysler, to build the hotel. Schultze & Weaver designed the 41-story tower at Fifth Avenue and 61st Street, which cost $15 million. It replaced the Gerry family mansion and opened with 714 rooms.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1933
The Pierre is sold at foreclosure auction to its bondholders' committee
After the Depression pushed the hotel into bankruptcy, it went to a public auction on January 12, 1933. The winning bidder was the bondholders' committee, which adopted a reorganization plan and kept Casalasco on as managing director. Shortly before his death in 1934, he mused that it would be years before anyone learned whether society would recover its footing.
Source: famoushotels.org
- 1938
J. Paul Getty buys the Pierre out of bankruptcy
The hotel went bankrupt in 1932 as markets kept collapsing during the Depression. Oilman J. Paul Getty then bought it in 1938 for $2.35 million, about six years after it had failed.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1940
The Cafe Pierre opens and becomes the hotel's social hot spot
Two years after J. Paul Getty bought the hotel and installed Frank Paget as general manager, the Cafe Pierre opened in the summer of 1940. It quickly became a favorite of the city's social elite. The room was redesigned by Valerian Rybar after the Four Seasons took over management in 1981.
Source: famoushotels.org
- 1948
WJZ television and FM radio broadcast from a tower atop the Pierre
In 1948 the station then called WJZ-TV Channel 7, along with WJZ-FM 95.5, began broadcasting from a tower on top of the Pierre. Today these are WABC-TV and WPLJ. A few years later the stations relocated to the Empire State Building.
“Beginning in 1948, New York City's ABC television and FM radio station (then called WJZ-TV Channel 7 and WJZ-FM 95.5, now WABC-TV and WPLJ) broadcast from a tower atop The Pierre…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1950
Manager Frank Paget puts radio and television sets in every guest room
Frank Paget, who ran the Pierre for J. Paul Getty, became the first hotelier to put radio and television sets in every guest room, in 1950.
Source: famoushotels.org
- 1959
Seventy-five Pierre apartments are sold to a cooperative of residents
Private residents formed a cooperative that took over 75 apartments in the building. Getty kept control of the hotel's services and guest rooms. The building has mixed hotel rooms and owned residences ever since.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1967
Edward Melcarth paints trompe l'oeil murals in the Pierre's Rotunda
In 1967 artist Edward Melcarth was commissioned to paint the Rotunda Room's Renaissance-style trompe l'oeil murals. Among the mythological figures he included recognizable New York society figures, among them a woman resembling Jacqueline Onassis at the top of the staircase and the actor Erik Estrada. Not every sitter was pleased to find a likeness on the hotel's walls, and the murals were restored in 2016.
Source: Untapped New York
- 1968
President-elect Nixon runs his transition from a suite of offices at the Pierre
After winning the November 1968 election, Richard Nixon set up his transition headquarters in a small suite of offices at the Pierre rather than use the Washington space President Johnson's team had prepared. The hotel was close to his New York home and his former campaign headquarters. Lower-level staff used the Washington office, and Nixon's was the first transition funded by the federal government.
“Nixon headquartered his transition in a small suite of offices at The Pierre hotel in New York City.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1972
Robbers take $11 million in guests' jewels from the Pierre's safe deposit boxes
In the early morning, men in tuxedos arrived by limousine and got in by posing as friends of a guest. They held 19 staff members and guards hostage while others broke open safe deposit boxes. The haul of jewels and valuables was worth about $11 million, and the masterminds were eventually caught and sent to Attica.
Source: Ephemeral New York
- 2017
Howard Lutnick buys the Pierre's triplex penthouse for $44 million, far below its $125 million ask
The 16-room triplex atop the Pierre, about 12,000 square feet, was listed at $125 million, and widow Barbara Zweig cut the price several times. When it failed to sell in 2015 at $63 million, she pulled it, had it redesigned, and relisted it in April 2016 at $57 million. In 2017 BGC Partners chief Howard Lutnick and his wife Allison bought it for $44 million through an LLC.
Source: therealdeal.com
Further reading
- The PierreWikipedia
- The great Pierre Hotel robbery of 1972Ephemeral New York
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