InterContinental New York Barclay Hotel
InterContinental New York Barclay Hotel is a luxury hotel in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. History. In 1926, the Vanderbilt family funded the building of The Barclay, a luxury hotel in Manhattan. The New York Central Railroad built the hotel on air rights of its subsidiary the New York State Realty and Terminal Company and it was known to be elegant, glamorous and popular in social circles. The Barclay was designed by the architects Cross & Cross who also designed the Tiffany & Co. flagship store. In 1931, after the completion of Grand Central  Terminal, the Barclay got power from hydraulic tanks in the basement of Grand Central. Twelve years later, in 1938, Cornell Club of New York took over the entire third floor. In June 1978, Loews Hotels won a bidding war against a group of Middle Eastern investors, and purchased the Barclay, Roosevelt and Biltmore hotels for $55 million from the bankrupt Penn Central Transportation Company, which operated them through their Realty Hotels division. The following month, Loews re-sold the Barclay to InterContinental Hotels, which renamed it The Barclay Inter-Continental. After a $32 million renovation, the hotel was  renamed the Inter-Continental New York in 1982. Another restoration in 1995 restored the lobby and public areas at a cost of $20 million. The hotel celebrated its 75th Anniversary in 2001 and was rebranded the InterContinental, The Barclay New York. In 2009, the hotel became the InterContinental New York Barclay. Tenants. Caswell-Massey had its flagship store in InterContinental New York Barclay for over 80 years. Caswell-Massey, the oldest chemist and perfumer in America, was the first and oldest tenant of the Barclay. Famous guests. Bette Davis, Gloria Swanson, Mary Pickford, Marlon Brando, Jimmie Durante, Debbie Reynolds , Ernest Hemingway and David O. Selznick all called the Barclay home. In 1992, when Bill Clinton first ran for President, the Barclay was his New York headquarters.