569 Lexington Avenue

The building you are approaching at 569 Lexington Avenue holds a distinct place in New York architectural history as the first hotel constructed in Manhattan in three decades when it opened in 1961. It was designed by the celebrated modernist architect Morris Lapidus, who famously brought the flamboyant Miami Modern style he perfected in Florida to this constricted corner of Midtown. Lapidus was so proud of this project that he featured an image of the building on the cover of his autobiography. Its design was experimental for the time, featuring an S-shaped tower that broke away from the standard boxy hotel layouts of the era. This was also the first hotel in New York City to utilize a reinforced concrete structural frame. The site previously hosted the Loew's Lexington Avenue Theater, an ornate venue originally built by the legendary theater impresario Oscar Hammerstein I in 1913. While the building served as a prominent hotel for many years under various names, including the Summit Hotel and the DoubleTree Metropolitan, it underwent a complete transformation recently. It was converted into a large-scale student housing facility, adapting the former hotel rooms into dormitories for students and interns. This reuse project managed to update the infrastructure, including adding kitchenettes to units, in a remarkably short seven-month conversion timeline.