569 Lexington Avenue (originally the Summit Hotel; formerly the Loews New York Hotel, Metropolitan Hotel, and DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Metropolitan New York City) is a dormitory building and former hotel in the East Midtown neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Designed by architect Morris Lapidus in the Miami Modern style, in association with the firm of Harle & Liebman, the building occupies the southeastern corner of Lexington Avenue and 51st Street. , the building is owned by Hawkins Way Capital which opened Found Study, a dormitory, on the site in 2022. The hotel building is a New York City designated landmark.
The building is 20 stories tall and stretches from west to east, with an S-shaped massing bent at two places. The hotel has a facade made of marble, turquoise glazed brick, and dark-green tile. There are storefronts along both 51st Street and Lexington Avenue. Above 569 Lexington Avenue's main entrance on Lexington Avenue is a vertical sign, consisting of ovals that originally spelled out the hotel's name. The lowest stories contained the lobby, three Latin American-themed dining areas, various shops, and meeting rooms. When the Summit Hotel opened, it contained 800 guest rooms, including 200 rooms with balconies on the upper stories.
The site was previously occupied by the Loew's Lexington Theatre, which was built in the 1910s. Loew's Theatres announced plans to replace the theater in early 1960, and a groundbreaking ceremony for the hotel took place on June 21, 1960. The Summit Hotel opened on August 1, 1961, and was Manhattan's first new hotel for short-term tenants in thirty years. When the Summit opened, its facade and interior were almost universally criticized, though the building's shape had a mixed reception. Over the years, the hotel has been renovated several times. The Summit was renamed the Loews New York Hotel in 1991 and became the Metropolitan Hotel in 2000. Loews sold the hotel in 2003 to a joint venture, which rebranded it in 2005 as part of the DoubleTree chain. RLJ Lodging Trust acquired the DoubleTree Metropolitan in 2011. The hotel was closed indefinitely in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City and was sold in 2022 to Hawkins Way Capital. A dormitory, Found Study, opened at the building in late 2022.
Site 569 Lexington Avenue is on the southeastern corner of Lexington Avenue and 51st Street, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It sits on the northwestern portion of a city block bounded by Lexington Avenue to the west, 50th Street to the south, Third Avenue to the east, and 51st Street to the north. 569 Lexington Avenue occupies a nearly rectangular land lot with an area of . The site has a frontage of on Lexington Avenue and on 51st Street.
The Benjamin Hotel is to the south on the same block, and St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church and the General Electric Building are to the west. 569 Lexington Avenue is also near the Waldorf Astoria New York to the southwest and 345 Park Avenue to the northwest. Entrances to the New York City Subway's Lexington Avenue/51st Street station, served by the , are adjacent to the north side of the building.
The site of the Summit Hotel was previously occupied by two buildings. Much of the site was occupied by the Loew's Lexington Theater, built in the early 1910s by Oscar Hammerstein I. It was subsequently acquired by Marcus Loew of the Loews Corporation. The theater wrapped around a smaller structure at the corner of Lexington Avenue and 51st Street, which measured . Before the theater was built, the site was occupied by the Nursery and Child's Hospital in the 19th century.
Architecture 569 Lexington Avenue was designed by Morris Lapidus and the firm of Harle & Liebman as the Summit Hotel. The latter firm was composed of interior designers Abby Harle and Harold Liebman, whom Lapidus worked with until the mid-1960s. Lapidus and the Harle & Liebman firm both had separate offices in New York City and in Miami Beach, Florida. When the Summit opened in 1961, it was Lapidus's first New York City hotel, as well as Manhattan's first new hotel in three decades. It was designed in a Miami Modern style, similar to his earlier Fontainebleau Miami Beach and Eden Roc Miami Beach Hotel.
Form and facade The base occupies the whole lot and is one story tall at its eastern end. Since the site slopes downward to the east, the eastern part of the base is taller than the western portion. The main section of the hotel rises 15 stories and stretches from west to east, with an S-shaped massing. Lapidus wanted to maximize space in the hotel;; he reasoned that a straight line was the minimum distance between two points, so he increased the hotel's length by bending its massing. Whereas a conventional hotel on the site would have been restricted to 500 rooms, Lapidus was able to fit 800 rooms in the Summit. At the time of the Summit Hotel's construction, other "unconventional" buildings like the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, TWA Flight Center, and Begrisch Hall were being built in New York City. The upper stories are freestanding on three elevations, abutting only the Girl Scouts Building to the east.
569 Lexington Avenue has a facade made of marble, glazed brick, and tile.; To distinguish the hotel from other nearby buildings, Lapidus used a color palette of dark-green mosaic tile and turquoise brick. Lapidus said he was inspired by the green-blue color of the McGraw Hill Building at 330 West 42nd Street, designed by Raymond Hood. The west and east elevations were entirely windowless.
Base
569 Lexington Avenue's main entrance is on the Lexington Avenue elevation; and is oriented slightly away from 51st Street. It consists of a set of metal doors on either side of a revolving door. In front of the entrance is a marquee of stainless steel with recessed lighting. Originally, there was a small plaza with light-hued terrazzo tiles in front of the main entrance. A pair of stainless-steel columns flanked the entrance and ascended to the third story.
The entrance was flanked by two restaurants: El Gaucho to the south and Casa Del Cafe to the north. The facade of El Gaucho was depressed beneath the main entrance and contained "molded stone-like lattice work" with small stained-glass inlays. The entrance to Casa Del Cafe was through a pair of stainless pillars. By the early 2000s, these had been replaced with storefronts, which take up the space formerly occupied by the plaza. Next to the northern storefront is a raised planter with globe-shaped lamps, which dates from the original design. The planter originally contained foliage that resembled palm plants in Miami Beach, Florida. The southern storefront was redesigned in 1990 with a dark-red metal facade, glass brick windows, and a curved corner.
Along the 51st Street elevation, the western half of the base is windowless. This elevation originally contained a facade of green mosaic tiles and precast concrete slabs, but this was replaced in 2005 with light-green rectangular glass tiles. There is a recessed service entrance in the middle of the glass-tiled section of the base. A small strip of green mosaic tile remains extant above the glass tiles; it contains projecting globe-shaped lamps made of aluminum. There are steel planters above the lamps. The central section of the base on 51st Street contains three recessed storefronts at ground level. Due to the slope of the site, the first story is above the storefronts; steel piers divide this section vertically into three bays. Each bay has four windows, each with green-glass transoms above and below. The easternmost section of the base on 51st Street is clad with concrete panels and contains a loading dock and a parking garage entrance. Above the parking-garage entrance are two vertical metal signs, each with neon letters and arrows advertising the garage.
Upper stories
The massing of the S-shaped upper stories is divided into three sections. The eastern section is parallel to the Manhattan street grid; the central section is oriented northwest, relative to the street grid; and the western section is oriented southwest, relative to the street grid. The north and south elevations are divided vertically into several bays. The main portion of the facade contains a background of dark green mosaic tiles. The windows on different stories are separated by slightly projecting rectangular spandrel panels of light-green brick, each with two vents. Each window is shared by two hotel rooms and is divided into two sections. Above the top floor of the main section are beige aluminum panels.
Above the main entrance on Lexington Avenue, the facade was originally a blank wall of Vermont marble, without any windows.; On the 7th to 13th floors, near the north end of the west elevation, is an illuminated sign measuring around tall. The sign was visible from all directions except the east. It contains seven oval disks in a vertical arrangement, as well as triangular supports between each disk. These disks each measure across and originally spelled out the word "Summit". Each oval disk could accommodate a single letter. The ovals were rearranged to spell "Loews" when the hotel became the Loews New York in the 1990s. After the hotel was renamed the "Metropolitan" in 2000, the letters of the hotel's name were placed in front of the triangular brackets and ovals, rather than directly onto the ovals.
The roof of the building contains a penthouse, which is set back from the roof, as well as a mechanical space in the middle of the block. The penthouse has a green-glass facade and is three stories tall. It was divided into two sections with their own patios.
Features The Summit Hotel was New York City's first hotel with a superstructure made of reinforced concrete. The use of a concrete frame obviated the need for steel ceiling beams, thus allowing each room to have higher ceilings and more flexible room arrangements. Additionally, the concrete frame was cheaper than a steel frame, and a concrete frame also provided better sound insulation. According to Lapidus, his previous projects had all used reinforced concrete, and he did not intend to use steel. The hotel was served by four passenger elevators and two service lifts.
The hotel has a five-story parking garage with 250 spots. Originally, there were supposed to be 225 or 300 spaces in the parking garage. Three of the five levels of parking are below the street. When the Summit Hotel opened, it also had a fleet of "foreign cars" for international travelers, including several right-hand drive vehicles (the opposite configuration from American vehicles, which are left-hand drive and follow right-hand traffic).
Lobby Lapidus had to fit a reception desk, three dining areas, a men's apparel shop, a barber shop, and meeting rooms within the lowest stories. The hotel's "public rooms" included three Latin American restaurants: the Gaucho Steak House, the Colombian Coffee House, and the Carioca Cocktail Lounge. All were designed in a whimsical style that, according to Lapidus, "created an image of Latin America that doesn't actually exist". The Gaucho Steak House was designed with metal light fixtures shaped like steer skulls; walls with gold naugahyde; and ceiling beams with animal motifs. The Carioca Lounge had a rosewood bar and a Venetian glass wall, as well as redwood walls, calf-hide wall panels, and wooden curtains. Meanwhile, the coffee shop had "pre-Columbian" wall decorations, consisting of cast stone panels designed by James Seeman and a sculpture with "machine parts" designed by Jordan Stechel. The coffee shop was decorated in a pink, purple, mauve, and orange color scheme. In addition, the Summit Hotel contained an event space called the Embassy Ballroom.