SUMMIT HOTEL (Now Doubletree Metropolitan Hotel), 569-573 Lexington Avenue (Aka 132-166 East 51St Street), Manhattan

Landmarks Preservation Commission May 17. 2005, Designation List 363 LP-2176 SUMMIT HOTEL (now Doubletree Metropolitan Hotel), 569-573 Lexington Avenue (aka 132-166 East 51st Street), Manhattan. Built 1959-61; Morris Lapidus, Harle & Liebman, architects. Landmark Site: Borough of Manhattan Tax Map, Block 1305, Lot 50. On March 29, 2005 the Landmarks Preservation Commission held a public hearing on the proposed designation as a Landmark of the Summit Hotel (now Doubletree Metropolitan Hotel) and the related Landmark site (Item No. 2). The hearing had been advertised in accordance with provisions of law. At this time, the owner testified, taking no position on designation. Twelve witnesses spoke in favor of designation, including representatives of the Landmarks Conservancy, Historic Districts Council, Docomomo-US, Friends of the Upper East Side, Modern Architecture Working Group, Landmark West, and the Municipal Art Society. The Commission also received numerous letters and e-mails in support of designation. The hearing was continued on April 21, 2005 (Item No. 4). Three witnesses testified in support of designation, including representatives of the Modern Architecture Working Group and Docomomo-US. At this time, a representative of the owner testified, taking no position. Summary Admired for its unusual shape, color, and stainless steel sign, the Summit Hotel is an important work by Morris Lapidus. Begun in 1959, it was the first hotel built in Manhattan in three decades and the architect’s first hotel in New York City. Lapidus was especially proud of this building and reproduced an image of the Summit on the cover of his autobiography, The Architecture of Joy, published in 1979. Trained at Columbia University, he enjoyed considerable success as a retail designer in the 1930s. After the Second World War, Lapidus began to design hotels, including the celebrated Fontainbleau and Eden Roc in Miami Beach. These accomplishments led to his association with the Tisch family, who commissioned the Americana Hotel in Bal Harbour, Florida, in 1956. After acquiring a controlling interest in Loew’s Theaters, they commissioned the Summit, which adapts many of the devices Lapidus perfected in Florida to a challenging, constricted site at the corner of Lexington Avenue and East 51st Street. Built in reinforced concrete, a material favored for its sculptural potential, the curving north and south elevations are clad in light green glazed brick and dark green mosaic tile manufactured in Italy. The top three stories, built as penthouse suites, are faced in green structural glass. To further distinguish the building from its neighbors, the door handles were inlaid with colorful mosaics and the base along East 51st Street is illuminated by globe-shaped lighting fixtures. On Lexington Avenue, he designed a striking illuminated sign. Consisting of seven disks hung between stainless steel pins, this unique element enhanced the hotel’s street presence, making it visible from a distance. Other distinctive features include a pair of neon signs that direct drivers to the parking garage and a stainless steel ash tray that serves cigarette smokers descending into the subway. The hotel opened in August 1961, generating considerable media attention. Some writers greeted the new hotel with disappointment or amusement, while others viewed it as a disharmonious addition to the streetscape. In subsequent years, however, the hotel attracted an increasing number of admirers and aside from alterations to the Lexington Avenue entrance, this flamboyant modern structure retains much of its original character. DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS Morris Lapidus (1902-2000)1 The Summit Hotel was designed by Morris Lapidus, one of the most influential hotel designers of the 20th century. Born in Odessa, Russia, in 1902, he and his family immigrated to the United States in 1903. They lived on the Lower East Side for several years, moving to Williamsburg, and later, to the East New York section of Brooklyn. Lapidus attended Boys High School (a designated New York City Landmark) in the Bedford section, and for a brief time trained as an actor at New York University. During the mid-1920s, he attended architecture school at Columbia University, studying with Frederic C. Hirons and Wallace K. Harrison. Lapidus worked as a draftsman for several firms, including Warren & Wetmore, Bloch & Hesse, Arthur Weiser, and for fifteen years, Evan Frankel (of Ross-Frankel). In the office of Ross-Frankel, during the 1930s, or working independently, he designed or supervised the construction of more the five hundred storefronts, shop interiors, and showrooms. Lapidus formed his own office in 1943 and gradually began to design entire structures, including stores, synagogues, apartment buildings, and an estimated two hundred hotels. Early works by Lapidus in New York City include: L Motors (1948, demolished) in Washington Heights, Shaare Zion synagogue (1954) in Flatbush, and the America Fore Insurance Group Office Building (1960) in downtown Brooklyn. A retail designer at heart, he created extravagant works that challenged the minimalist trends of the 1950s. He often worked in broad strokes, juxtaposing modern and traditional forms, as well as color, texture, and light. Lapidus eschewed right angles, creating structures that had unusual floor plans and distinctive shapes. His best-known commissions are located in southern Florida, namely the crowd-pleasing Fontainbleau (1954) and Eden Roc (1955) hotels, on adjoining parcels in Miami Beach. Lapidus later observed that the plan of the Fontainbleau “resembles nothing from the past. There’s hardly a straight line in it – it just moves, one curve going one way, and another in the opposite direction. There’s no end.”2 Lapidus designed the Summit Hotel in association with Harle & Liebman. Leo Kornblath, who is listed as a partner in filings with the Department of Buildings, is not identified on the building plans and established his own firm during the hotel’s construction.3 During these years, Lapidus operated two offices: in Manhattan, on East 56th Street; and in Miami Beach, on Lincoln Road. Harle & Liebman are identified as interior designers, with offices in New York City and Miami Beach. Lapidus met Abby Harle (born Hornstein) in 1945 and they worked together until the mid-1960s. Harold Liebman joined the New York office in the late 1950s, principally to design apartment houses and remained until the mid-1960s. Lapidus closed his Miami office in 1984, but lived long enough – 98 years – to be recognized as an American original. He was credited as being a “postmodernist long before the term existed” and even Philip Johnson praised his unabashedly flamboyant work, calling him the “father of us all.”4 Hotels in New York City Since the opening of Astor House (1831, demolished), opposite City Hall, structures built to provide temporary accommodations have earned an important place in the Manhattan cityscape. At their highest level, hotels symbolize what the city aspires to be – a place of fashion, fantasy, convenience, and comfort. Among prominent architects to design hotels, three firms stand out: Henry J. Hardenbergh, Schulze & Weaver, and Lapidus. Active in distinct and successive eras, their best designs capture the spirit and taste of their generation. Hardenbergh, author of the hotel entry in the Dictionary of Architecture and Building (1902), edited by Russell Sturgis, was architect of the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (1893-96, demolished 1930), the Martinque Hotel (1897-1911, a designated New York City Landmark), and the Plaza Hotel (1907, a designated New York City Landmark) in New York City, as well as the Willard Hotel (1906) in Washington, D. C., and the Copley Plaza (1912) in Boston. Built in variants of the classical style, these buildings defined the modern hotel, establishing standards of appearance and plan. Schulze & Weaver were the leading firm in the 1920s and 1930s, designing the Sherry-Netherland Hotel (with Buchman & Kahn, 1927, part of the Upper East Side Historic District), the Hotel Pierre (1928, part of the Upper East Side Historic District), and 2 the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (1929-31, a designated New York City Landmark). They also designed the Sevilla Biltmore Hotel (1921) in Havana, Cuba, the Biltmore (1923) in Los Angeles, and the Miami- Biltmore Hotel (1926) in Coral Gables, Florida. No hotels were built in Manhattan during the 1950s. Despite great success in Florida, in his home town Lapidus remained, for the most part, an interior designer. Initial hotel projects involved remodeling earlier structures, such as the lobby of the Hotel Governor Clinton (1957) at Seventh Avenue and 31st Street and various interiors in the Hotel New Yorker (1959-60) on Eighth Avenue, between 34th and 35th Streets. Outside New York City, however, he designed a considerable number of hotels and resorts, such as the Hollywood Hotel (1952) in Long Branch, New Jersey, the Surf Club Hotel (1954) in Atlantic Beach, New Jersey, Kutsher’s Country Club (1955) in Monticello, New York, and the Concord Hotel (1958) in Kiamesha Lake, New York. The Developer5 Lapidus began his association with the Tisch family in 1947. Al Tisch manufactured clothes and ran two children’s camps in the Poconos. At the urging of his older son Laurence Tisch, who graduated from the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce in 1943, these businesses were sold in 1946 and the revenue invested in Laurel-in-the-Pines, an aging 300-room-resort in Lakewood, New Jersey. Laurence’s brother, Robert Preston Tisch, joined the firm in 1948. Though Lapidus described the role he played as “minor,” this initial project established a professional relationship, helping him to eventually secure the opportunity to design the $17 million Americana Hotel in Bal Harbour, Florida.6 Completed in 1956, this commission led to a profile of the architect in the New York Times that described the five-hundred room hotel as “the brightest jewel in the Tisch family’s crown of resort hotels.”7 The first hotel that they operated in New York City was the McAlpin (1913), acquired in 1951.8 Nine years later, Tisch Hotels, Inc.

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