Hotel Elysée - Wikipedia

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The Hotel Elysée is a hotel on 60 East 54th Street between Madison and Park Avenues in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The hotel was founded in 1926 as a European-style hotel for the carriage trade by Swiss-born Max Haering.^[1]

New York's leading hatcheck concessionaire, Mayer Quain, purchased the hotel out of bankruptcy in 1937. After the War, his children eclectically designed every room so that no two rooms were alike. In lieu of traditional numbers, the rooms were named to reflect their personality, such as the "Sayonara" suite assigned to Marlon Brando after his starring role in Teahouse of the August Moon. Tennessee Williams lived in the hotel for fifteen years and died in the "Sunset" suite.

Columnist Jimmy Breslin, who regards the Elysée as "a great hotel, a genuine New York landmark," succeeded Ruark as the hotel's unofficial chronicler. Upon Tennessee Williams's death at the Elysée in February 1983, Breslin recalled the story of a transient guest who called the front desk at 5:00 am complaining that someone in the next suite was keeping her awake by typing all night. "They knew right away who the culprit was, but they couldn't very well ask Mr. Williams to stop playwriting, so we simply moved the guest to another room."

In November 1948, Tallulah Bankhead celebrated President Harry S. Truman's victory over Thomas E. Dewey in the 1948 United States presidential election by throwing a noisy party at the hotel that ran non-stop for five days and nights.

The Monkey Bar

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The Elysée is known for the Monkey Bar, a piano bar just off the lobby. Opened in the 1940s, it became known to the cognoscenti as "the place to go where jokes die," especially off-color jokes and double-entendre songs spun by such performers as Johnny Payne (1934-1964), Marion Page (1950-1965) and Mel Martin (1945-1983). Johnny Andrews played the piano at cocktail hour for over 50 years (1936-1990).

Starting out as just another dimly lit hotel piano bar with mirrored paneling, the tiny room was expanded in the early 1950s when the mirrors were replaced by wraparound hand-painted mural by caricaturist Charlie Vella. Eight more monkeys were added to the bar mural in 1984 by artist Diana Voyentzie "to remind customers of their behaviour."^[2]^[3] In 1995, when the bar was redesigned by the architect David Rockwell, all of the monkeys were unified by Voyentzie with more monkeys and palm trees and foliage.

References

[edit]

^ Nathan, Jean (December 18, 1994). "Monkey Business". The New York Times Magazine. p. 62, Sec. 6. Retrieved January 8, 2014.
^ Brown, Elizabeth Quinn (August 2013). "New York's Narrative". Quest. p. 141. Retrieved January 8, 2014.
^ "Mizner Palm Beach Bricktops", dianevoyentziemonkeys.com, 2013, archived from the original on January 8, 2014, retrieved January 8, 2014

External links

[edit]

Official website of the Hotel Elysée

40°45′36″N 73°58′24″W / 40.7599°N 73.9732°W / 40.7599; -73.9732

Midtown (42nd–59th Streets)

Manhattan, New York City

Buildings

West of
5th Av

Rockefeller Center	1 Rockefeller Plz 10 Rockefeller Plz 30 Rockefeller Plz 50 Rockefeller Plz 75 Rockefeller Plz 1211 6th Av 1221 6th Av 1251 6th Av 1271 6th Av British Empire Building International Building La Maison Francaise
Times Square	1 Astor Plz 1 Times Sq 3 Times Sq 4 Times Sq 11 Times Sq 20 Times Sq 229 W 43rd St 255 W 43rd St 1500 Broadway 1501 Broadway 1540 Broadway 1552 Broadway 1585 Broadway TSX Broadway

East of
5th Av

Former

Theaters

Broadway theaters	Ambassador August Wilson Belasco Bernard B. Jacobs Booth Broadhurst Broadway Circle in the Square Ethel Barrymore Eugene O'Neill Gerald Schoenfeld Gershwin Hayes Hudson Imperial James Earl Jones John Golden Lena Horne Longacre Lunt-Fontanne Lyceum Lyric Majestic Marquis Minskoff Music Box Neil Simon Palace Richard Rodgers St. James Samuel J. Friedman Shubert Stephen Sondheim Studio 54 Todd Haimes Walter Kerr Winter Garden
Other venues	55th Street Playhouse Carnegie Hall Ed Sullivan Theater The ImaginAsian New Victory Theater New York City Center Paris Theater Radio City Music Hall Sony Hall The Theater Center The Town Hall York Theatre
Closed/demolished	44th Street 48th Street Apollo Center Capitol Earl Carroll Edison Embassy Fulton George M. Cohan's Loew's State Lyric New Century Olympia Roxy Strand Times Square Victoria Ziegfeld (1927) Ziegfeld (1969)

Hotels

Current

Former

Other points of interest

Restaurants/ nightlife	21 Club 54 Below Alto Anthos Aureole Burger Heaven Le Bernardin Cafe Chambord Campbell Apartment La Caravelle Caviar Russe Del Pezzo Restaurant Ellen's Stardust Diner Four Twenty Five Gabriel Kreuther Gallagher's Steakhouse Grand Central Oyster Bar & Restaurant La Grenouille Iridium Jazz Club Le Jardinier King Cole Bar Kurumazushi Latin Quarter Lespinasse Marea Naro The Pool and the Grill Oceana The Original Soupman P. J. Clarke's Patsy's Le Pavillon Prime Burger The Quilted Giraffe Rainbow Room Restaurant Aquavit Rumpelmayer's Russian Tea Room Sardi's Satsuki Shun Lee Palace Stage Deli The Campbell
Museums/ cultural centers	Austrian Cultural Forum New York Girl Scout Museum and Archives John M. Mossman Lock Museum Korean Cultural Center New York Madame Tussauds New York Museum of Arts and Design Museum of Broadway Museum of Modern Art New York Transit Museum Paley Center for Media Rose Museum Spyscape
Stores	Argosy Book Store Gotham Book Mart
Clubhouses	American Fine Arts Society The Brook Century Association Cornell Club of New York Harvard Club of New York City New York Athletic Club New York City Bar Association New York Friars Club New York Yacht Club Penn Club of New York Racquet and Tennis Club University Club of New York Women's National Republican Club Yale Club of New York City
Clubhouses (former)	Princeton Club of New York
Green spaces	Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden Central Park Grand Army Plaza Greenacre Park Paley Park
Educational institutions	53rd Street Library Circle in the Square Theatre School CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies High School of Performing Arts Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis High School for International Careers Saint Thomas Choir School SUNY College of Optometry
Art galleries	Galerie St. Etienne Rehs Galleries

Transportation

Subway stations	Fifth Avenue/53rd Street Fifth Avenue–59th Street Seventh Avenue 42nd Street–Bryant Park/Fifth Avenue 42nd Street–Port Authority Bus Terminal 47th–50th Streets–Rockefeller Center 49th Street 50th Street 50th Street 57th Street–Seventh Avenue 57th Street 59th Street–Columbus Circle Grand Central–42nd Street Lexington Avenue/51st Street Lexington Avenue/59th Street Times Square–42nd Street
Railroad stations	Grand Central Madison Grand Central Terminal
Streets and intersections	Third Avenue Fifth Avenue Sixth Avenue Six and a Half Avenue Seventh Avenue Eighth Avenue 42nd 47th 50th 51st 52nd 53rd 54th 55th 57th 59th Broadway Columbus Circle Duffy Square Grand Army Plaza George Abbott Way Lexington Avenue Madison Avenue Park Avenue Park Avenue Viaduct Pershing Square Shubert Alley Times Square Vanderbilt Avenue

Related topics
Billionaires' Row Little Brazil Midtown South Minnesota Strip

See also: Manhattan Community Board 5

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