Raymond Orteig

Together with a business partner, Orteig was also able to lease the rundown Brevoort Hotel on the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 8th Street in Greenwich Village, and later refurbish it.

[2] In 1919 he attended a dinner in New York City organised by the Aero Club of America honouring the American flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker.

Inspired by Rickenbacker's speech, Orteig offered a prize of $25,000 to the first person of any Allied country to fly in one flight in either direction between New York City and Paris.

After its original term had expired, Orteig reissued the Prize on 1 June 1925, by depositing $25,000 in negotiable securities at the Bryant Bank with the awarding put under the control of a seven-member board of trustees.

[4] In May 1927, Orteig and his wife were on holiday in Pau, France, when he received a message from his son Raymond Jr that Charles Lindbergh had departed New York City.

Upon being retrieved, the flag was presented to Orteig who displayed it on the wall of the Lafayette in New York, until his family later removed it in protest at Lindbergh's involvement in the America First movement in the 1940s.

Upon Lindbergh's return to America, Orteig officially presented the Prize to him on 16 June 1927 at a ceremony held in the reception hall of the Breevort Hotel in New York City.