Why you should experience Warwick New York in New York, NY.
Warwick New York is a theatrical four-star hotel where Midtown's Broadway glamour, publishing power, Hollywood mythology and Jazz Age sophistication converge inside William Randolph Hearst's deeply personal monument to actress Marion Davies.
Set along West 54th Street near 6th Avenue and just steps from The Museum of Modern Art, the hotel opened in 1926 after Hearst commissioned a residential tower beside the former Ziegfeld Theatre, where Davies performed, creating accommodations for her and the Hollywood circle moving between California and New York. The Renaissance Revival composition, designed by Emery Roth with George B. Post & Sons, rises from a limestone and granite base through a brown-brick tower shaped by successive setbacks, while Davies received her own specially designed floor. Cary Grant later made the Warwick his Manhattan residence for more than a decade, extending Hearst's original relationship between the property and cinema into another generation. The result is a hotel where Hearst's private romance, Davies's theatrical career and nearly a century of entertainment history remain unusually inseparable from the building itself.
What you should know about Warwick New York.
Warwick New York is best known for opening in 1926 after publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst commissioned the $5 million hotel for actress Marion Davies and his Hollywood circle, creating a 36-story Renaissance Revival tower designed by Emery Roth in association with George B. Post & Sons beside the Ziegfeld Theatre where Davies performed. The property contains 426 guestrooms today, while Hearst originally reserved a specially designed floor for Davies and Cary Grant subsequently lived at the Warwick for 12 years, occupying the accommodation now known as Suite of the Stars, a 1,200-square-foot residence with a west-facing wraparound terrace. Elvis Presley, James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Russell passed through the hotel, while The Beatles stayed during their 1965 and 1966 American tours, generating crowds outside during Beatlemania. The hotel's historical significance eventually became foundational to another hospitality story when Richard Chiu purchased the Warwick in 1980 and used the acquisition to establish Warwick Hotels and Resorts, which subsequently expanded into an international collection. A 2014 renovation continued the property's evolution while preserving the 426-room configuration and the unusually concentrated entertainment history embedded within its signature suites.
William Randolph Hearst added another permanent artistic artifact in 1937 when he commissioned American illustrator Dean Cornwell to create enormous murals for the hotel's Raleigh Room, now Murals on 54, depicting episodes from the life of Sir Walter Raleigh including his reception of a charter from Elizabeth I and arrival at Roanoke Island. Cornwell and Hearst subsequently disputed compensation, and Cornwell retaliated by inserting fascinating imagery into the compositions, contributing to one mural remaining concealed for more than four decades before the works were eventually restored during a 2004 restaurant renovation. The current suite collection turns the property's personalities into architecture, with the 781-square-foot Marion Suite honoring Davies, the 977-square-foot Randolph Suite referencing Hearst and the Cary Grant-associated Suite of the Stars preserving the strongest residential connection to the hotel's Hollywood period. Randolph's Bar and Lounge continues the Hearst narrative through a rosebud motif associated with Hearst's affectionate name for Davies, allowing romance, publishing, illustration and cinema to remain woven through spaces originally created from the relationship between the couple.
How to fold Warwick New York into your trip.
Warwick New York works as the anchor for an afternoon tracing broadcasting, performing arts and American design through the unusually concentrated cultural blocks surrounding West 54th Street.
Begin at The Paley Center for Media, founded by CBS chairman William S. Paley in 1975 to collect, preserve and interpret broadcasting, then relocated in 1991 into Philip Johnson's purpose-designed West 52nd Street building, connecting Warwick's media-mogul origins with another powerful figure who shaped twentieth-century American communications. Continue to New York City Center, where the 1923 Moorish Revival interior created for the Mecca Temple eventually became a performing-arts institution, carrying the sequence from broadcast culture into the theatrical world that originally brought Marion Davies to this part of Midtown. Conclude at Museum of Arts and Design, founded by craft patron Aileen Osborn Webb in 1956 and housed since 2008 inside Brad Cloepfil's 54,000-square-foot Columbus Circle building, where glazed terra-cotta, fritted glass and open artist studios place material experimentation at the center of the museum experience. The progression moves from Paley's preservation of broadcasting through Midtown's theatrical culture into an institution devoted to craftsmanship and design, revealing the convergence of media, performance and creative authorship that has surrounded Warwick New York since Hearst opened its doors.
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