Fifth Avenue's grand hotels – from The Plaza to The Pierre

Along Fifth Avenue between 55th Street and Central Park stand four of New York's most famous hotels, all built between 1904 and 1930. Here is the story behind The Plaza, The Pierre, The St. Regis and The Peninsula – and the drink that was born in the King Cole Bar.

In the late 1800s Fifth Avenue in New York was a street of townhouses and private mansions. In the early 1900s the stretch between 42nd Street and Central Park turned commercial, and within a few decades four of the city's most legendary hotels went up here. This guide follows the avenue north, from 55th Street to 61st Street.

The St. Regis – Astor's hotel of 1904

The St. Regis New York stands at 2 East 55th Street, on the south-east corner facing Fifth Avenue. John Jacob Astor IV, part-owner of the original Waldorf-Astoria, began building in 1901 and named the hotel after Upper St. Regis Lake in the Adirondack Mountains. It opened on 4 September 1904, designed by Trowbridge & Livingston in the Beaux-Arts style, with a limestone facade and an interior of marble and bronze.

In the hotel's King Cole Bar, beneath Maxfield Parrish's mural Old King Cole, a drink then called the Red Snapper was introduced in 1934. According to Untapped Cities, the name Bloody Mary was considered too vulgar for an elegant hotel bar, and the bartender Fernand Petiot is credited with spicing the drink up. The St. Regis is a New York City landmark, is operated today by Marriott and has been owned since 2019 by the Qatar Investment Authority.

The Peninsula – the Gotham Hotel of 1905

Opposite, on the south-west corner of Fifth Avenue and 55th Street, is The Peninsula New York. It opened on 1 October 1905 as the Gotham Hotel, designed by Hiss and Weekes in the Italian Renaissance Revival style, with a limestone and granite facade intended to match its neighbour, the University Club. The hotel was sold in 1908 after several failed attempts to obtain a liquor licence, and changed hands many times.

In 1989 Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels took it over and renamed it The Peninsula New York. A three-storey glass penthouse from the 1980s houses a pool and gym, and the hotel today has 241 rooms.

The Plaza – a French château by Central Park

At Fifth Avenue and Central Park South stands The Plaza, which opened on 1 October 1907. The architect Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, who also designed The Dakota, wanted to give it "all the pomp, splendour and extravagance of a French château". Construction took two years, cost $12 million and produced a 19-storey hotel. Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt and his wife were the first guests to check in.

The Plaza became a New York City landmark in 1969 and a National Historic Landmark in 1986 – the only hotel in the city with that status. In the 1920s the hotel was the centre of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald's social life, and Fitzgerald set one of the key scenes of The Great Gatsby in a suite here. In February 1964 The Beatles stayed at the hotel on their first visit to the US, and in September 1985 the financial agreement known as the Plaza Accord was signed here. In 1955 Kay Thompson and Hilary Knight installed six-year-old Eloise on the hotel's top floor, and the Palm Court is still the hotel's tearoom.

The Pierre – Charles Pierre's 1930 skyscraper

Furthest north, at 2 East 61st Street facing Central Park, stands The Pierre. Charles Pierre, who had started out as a page boy in his father's restaurant in Ajaccio, Corsica, and worked at the Hotel Anglais in Monte Carlo, teamed up with a group of Wall Street financiers, among them Walter P. Chrysler and Edward F. Hutton. The 41-storey hotel, with 714 rooms and designed by Schultze & Weaver, opened in October 1930. The gala dinner was prepared by Auguste Escoffier.

The building rises 160 metres in pale brick from a Louis XVI-style base, and the top floors, beneath a tall copper roof, are modelled on Mansart's royal chapel at Versailles. The hotel went bankrupt during the Depression in 1932, and the oil magnate J. Paul Getty bought it in 1938. Since 2005 it has been owned by India's Taj Hotels.

How to walk Fifth Avenue's hotel mile

Start at 55th Street with The St. Regis and The Peninsula on either side of the avenue, walk north past the shops to Grand Army Plaza and The Plaza at 59th Street, and finish at The Pierre on 61st Street with Central Park in front of you. The walk takes a quarter of an hour without stopping – but nobody does it without stopping. Carry on up the avenue along Museum Mile, read about The Breakers, The Plaza and The Carlyle, and see New York in VERA PI's New York guide, the map of Manhattan and VERA PI Camera. Find more city guides among metromode.co's destinations.

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