Luxury Hotels Atlas / Places / United States / New York City / Hotel Elysee
Hotel Elysee
New York City, New York, United States · Library Hotel Collection · Accessible Luxury
Playwright Tennessee Williams lived in this 1926 Midtown hotel for fifteen years and died in its Sunset suite in February 1983. Turkish hatcheck magnate Mayer Quain bought the bankrupt building for $473,000 in 1936 and opened the ground-floor Monkey Bar that same year, a piano lounge that became a favorite of Ava Gardner, Frank Sinatra, and Joe DiMaggio. The hotel closed in 2025 for a renovation ahead of its 2026 centennial.
- 103 rooms
- Opened 1926
- Neighborhood: Midtown
About Hotel Elysee
- Mayer Quain's family redesigned every room after World War Two so no two were alike, replacing room numbers with names; Marlon Brando's suite was called Sayonara, after his 1957 film.
- Tallulah Bankhead lived at the hotel for eighteen years, throwing days-long parties and keeping pets that included a myna bird, a monkey, and a tiger cub she named Winston Churchill.
- Pianist Johnny Andrews played the Monkey Bar's cocktail hour for 54 years, from 1936 to 1990.
- Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter and hotelier Jeff Klein bought and restored the Monkey Bar in 2009; it later appeared as a location in Mad Men and Sex and the City.
- The 2025-2026 renovation will shrink the hotel from 103 rooms to 83 as suites are enlarged, part of a $25 million repositioning funded by a loan from Axonic Capital.
The setting
Hotel Elysee is a Midtown hotel on the east side of Midtown in New York City. The Museum of Modern Art is roughly 5 minutes' walk, and Rockefeller Center is roughly 6 minutes' walk. This is hotel country. Stay toward Central Park South if you want a morning in the park; stay west of Sixth if the show is the point. MoMA, Radio City, and Bryant Park are the afternoon-to-curtain map. 2 blocks from 5th Avenue shops.
Restaurants and bars
- Monkey Bar — Restaurant · American
Open Hotel Elysee in the atlas for live weekend rates, photos, and the full folio.
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