New York City

Where silent film stars slept and rock legends lost fortunes in a Midtown landmark that defined an era before becoming a supertall tower.

via Wikipedia: Drake Hotel (New York City) · see source

The Drake Hotel stood at 440 Park Avenue and 56th Street in Midtown Manhattan, a 21-floor complex built in 1926 by Bing & Bing. Containing 495 rooms, it became a legendary hub for silent film stars, rock bands, and cultural icons before its sale in 2006. The hotel was demolished in 2007 to make way for the residential skyscraper 432 Park Avenue. During its nearly eight decades of operation, it hosted figures ranging from Lillian Gish to Led Zeppelin, offering innovations like automatic refrigeration and housing Fauchon chocolates on the ground floor. Its story is one of high-profile residency, musical history, and eventual transformation into one of New York's most valuable development sites.

Lore & Background

The Drake Hotel served as a preferred accommodation for touring rock bands throughout the 1960s and 1970s. In July 1973, Led Zeppelin stayed at the hotel, only to have $203,000 in cash stolen from a safe deposit box; the money was never recovered, and the thief remains unidentified. The band later sued the Drake Hotel for the theft. Other British rock bands like Slade and Sweet also made the hotel their home away from home during gruelling US tours that decade. Beyond music, the hotel hosted a permanent suite reserved by publishers Bob Guccione and Kathy Keeton prior to 1977. In its final years, restaurateur Toots Shor lived there, while silent film star Lillian Gish called it home from 1946 to 1949.

Reader's Guide

Visitors to the Drake Hotel during its Swissotel era (early 1980s) experienced a $52 million room-by-room renovation completed in 1991. The hotel gained national exposure when the talk show Donahue used it to accommodate guests, featuring mentions on every episode. In 2006, the property sold for $440 million (equivalent to $660 million in 2024) to developer Harry Macklowe. Demolition began in 2007, clearing the site for a 1,398-foot residential skyscraper designed by Rafael Viñoly. Construction on 432 Park Avenue started in mid-2012, and the tower topped out in October 2014. At completion, it held the title of the tallest building in New York City by roof height and the tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere.

Did You Know?

The nightclub Shepheard's distributed printed cards with step-by-step instructions for dancing the Jerk, Watusi, Frug, and the Monkey.
Songwriter Jerome Kern collapsed on the sidewalk directly in front of the Drake Hotel on November 5, 1945.