The building was designed by Frank Mills Andrews in the Italian Renaissance style and was the largest hotel in the world at the time of its completion, with 1,500 guestrooms.

Originally, the hotel included a triple-height lobby clad in marble and stone, as well as various public rooms in the Renaissance and Louis XVI styles.

The hotel was sold in 1936 and refurbished the following year; the New York Life Insurance Company then resold the McAlpin to Joseph Levy in 1945.

Other nearby structures include the Marbridge Building to the north, Macy's Herald Square to the northwest, Manhattan Mall to the southwest, and the Martinique New York and Hotel Pierrepont to the south.

[26] The hotel's sub-basement contained power generators with a capacity of 2,400 horsepower (1,800 kW), as well as two icemakers that could create up to 10 tons of ice per day.

[30] When the hotel was built, the Real Estate Record and Guide wrote that the design of the base "marks a distinct departure from the established New York type of hostelry", in that the dining rooms and restaurants were placed one story above ground level.

[31] The main lobby, a three-story space, was clad in marble and Caen stone[24][32] and was designed in the Italian Renaissance style.

[32] The women's restaurant, an irregularly shaped space at the southeast corner of the mezzanine, was decorated with blue tapestries and carved capitals.

[47][49] According to a promotional booklet for the hotel, the space was decorated with "beautifully colored, glazed terra-cotta tiles, [which have] made it really unique and one of New York's most talked about novelties.

[53] Susan Tunick, president of the non-profit group Friends of Terra Cotta, saw dumpsters outside the hotel filled with fragments from the murals.

[20][21] The Greeley Square Hotel Company designated one story as a women-only floor at the suggestion of philanthropist Anne Morgan.

[21][41][64] In addition, there was a men's lounge immediately above the 22nd floor, with a library, smoking room, bar, stock ticker, stenographer, and seating areas.

[28] The servants' rooms were arranged based on their tenure, according to the New-York Tribune, "so that the high salaried domestics would not be obliged to associate with the inferior fellow workers between the hours of duty".

[67] When the McAlpin became an apartment building in the 1970s, the roof was converted into a fitness center that included a sauna, swimming pool, squash courts, and game rooms.

[67] Prior to the Hotel McAlpin's construction, the site had contained low-rise residences, as well as the eight-story Alpine Building at Broadway and 33rd Street.

[12] In February 1915, the Greeley Square Hotel Company filed plans with the New York City Bureau of Buildings for a 23-story annex on the site, to be designed by Warren and Wetmore.

[70][116] Shortly afterward, the media reported that Joseph Levy, president of Crawford Clothes, had agreed to buy the hotel.

These modifications include installing a new storefront with display windows, recessed behind the hotel's facade to create an arcade along the sidewalk, as well as a main entrance with curved glass doors at the corner of 34th Street and Broadway.

[82][136] Sheraton sold the underlying land to United States Steel and the Carnegie Pension Fund in 1961, but it retained ownership of the hotel building.

[45] The basement restaurant contained the hotel's only kitchen, so Goldman and DiLorenzo decided to convert the mezzanine-level lounge into a dining room called the McAlpin Grill.

[152] The owners started a 120-day sale of furnishings and decorations that November, including televisions, linens, office equipment, and chandeliers.

[163] JEMB Realty, controlled by Morris Bailey and Joseph Jerome,[164] bought the McAlpin in August 1999 for $150 million and renamed it Herald Towers.

[158] JEMB Realty attempted to sell Herald Towers in 2003 to Property Markets Group, but the two companies became involved in a legal dispute.

Amid continuing disputes over the Herald Towers condominium conversion, the New York Supreme Court reviewed the case in June 2006.

[167] Around the same time, the attorney general's office began investigating allegations that some of the apartments were illegally being rented out as hotel rooms.

[171] Additionally, in the early 2020s, amid efforts to legalize full-scale gambling in New York, Morris Bailey considered erecting a casino on the site of Herald Towers.

[174] At a 1914 banquet in the hotel, members of the New York Democratic Party formed an organization to fight the Tammany Hall political machine.

[175] In October 1917[176] and again in December 1918, the McAlpin hosted conferences for the League of Small and Subject Nationalities, a New York City-based self-determinist organization led by Frederic C.

[177] When Luisa Tetrazzini sang from her hotel room in December 1920, the United States Army Signal Corps broadcast her performance to warships.

[183] Jackie Robinson was living on the 11th floor in 1947 when the Brooklyn Dodgers called to tell him that he would be the first African American player in Major League Baseball.