Ritz-Carlton Hotel, New York

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Madison Avenue and 46th Street, Midtown Manhattan. Photograph copyrighted by Irving Underhill in 1911. Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The Ritz-Carlton Investing Company was established in the United States by Albert Keller, who bought and franchised the name. Plans by architects Warren & Wetmore to erect the hotel were published in 1907 (the same firm designed the Vanderbilt Hotel on Park Avenue). The site was owned by Goelet State (Robert Walton Goelet died in 1941).

The New York hotel opened in 1911, the first one in the United States, and it was demolished in 1951. The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company expanded after 1982. The Hotel St. Moritz, built in 1930 and located at 50 Central Park South was bought by the Company.