The Ritz Tower is a luxury residential building at 465 Park Avenue on the corner of East 57th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City.

The interior of the building uses rich material, such as parquet floors and wood-paneled walls, all part of Brisbane's desire to make the Ritz Tower the most sought-after apartment hotel in the city.

The Ritz Tower is at 465 Park Avenue, on the northeastern corner with 57th Street, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City.

If the Roomes had ever taken back ownership of that lot, they could detach the setback section from the rest of the building, then install a staircase and elevator for their own use.

The westernmost bay, closest to Park Avenue, contains a rectangular doorway with an elaborate stone entablature at ground level.

[27] The Ritz Tower was legally classified as a hotel to circumvent zoning restrictions that prevented new apartment buildings from being taller than 150 percent of the width of the adjacent street.

[34][35] Unlike in earlier developments, where residents could hire their own servants, staff worked for all tenants at the Ritz Tower on a cooperative basis.

[32] The ground floor contained the elevator hall, main entrances, stores, a residents' restaurant and tearoom, and a banking office.

The floor was clad in travertine stone while the ceiling featured colorful groin arches, atop which were large bronze lanterns.

[34][38] The tearoom, leading off the main hallway and accessible through brass and wrought-iron gates, was meant to resemble a "Pompeian patio".

Apartment hotels had less stringent regulations on sunlight, ventilation, and emergency stairs but had to contain communal spaces like dining rooms.

[49][f] The Ritz Tower was one such apartment hotel, developed by Arthur Brisbane, a prominent columnist for Hearst Communications during the early 1920s.

[50][63] That September, Roth publicized plans for a residential structure at 465 Park Avenue, which would be taller than any other building north of 42nd Street.

[64] The plans called for a 30-story building with 358 rooms, 165 bathrooms, 135 kitchens, a restaurant, a bank, and art galleries and exhibition space.

[68] The same month, main contractor Todd and Robertson Engineering Corporation started demolishing existing buildings on the site.

[73][74] The general management of the building was contracted to the Brown Wheelock Harris Vought and Company's vice president, Duncan G.

[77][78] According to The New York Times, the Ritz Tower had "already attracted the attention of architects, artists and building engineers" across the United States.

[78] During that October, the city's tenement house commissioner Walter C. Martin issued an order that deemed about 150 "apartment hotels" citywide to be in violation of height restrictions, including the new Ritz Tower.

[98][99] Concurrently, his own media ventures were losing large amounts of money, leading Hearst to place the building for sale.

[24][100][101] Hearst forfeited ownership of the building in April 1938 after failing to make payments on the first mortgage loan,[98][99] and he moved to California from his home in the Ritz Tower.

[102] The interior furnishings remained under Hearst ownership, but operations passed to the trustee, the Continental Bank and Trust Company.

[105] Continental Bank and Trust bought the majority of the Ritz Tower at a foreclosure auction in January 1940,[106] excluding the portion of the base on Park Avenue.

[129] The year afterward, Japanese department store Mitsukoshi opened a New York City office, with a restaurant and boutique shop at the Ritz Tower's base.

[31] The same year, Borders was looking to close its bookstore at the building, as its other Manhattan location at the World Trade Center had been destroyed in the September 11, 2001, attacks.

[102] Other early tenants included Arthur G. Hoffman, vice president of The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company,[143] as well as Edward E. Spafford, the national commander of the American Legion.

[24] Playwright Neil Simon also occupied the Ritz Tower from the 1980s until he died in 2018;[151] he had vowed to live in the building after visiting Ace's apartment.

[152] Robert A. M. Stern wrote in his 1987 book New York 1930 that Roth's original design had an "ingenious" organization, but that "the massing was clumsy, with abrupt setback transitions.

"[13] Eric Nash wrote that Roth "seems to have done everything in his power to disguise the building's height", which resulted in a design that was "easy to find fault with".

"[18] In a book published in 1932, W. Parker Chase wrote that the building was "'just a little bit of Paris' fitted into the American setting of magnificent Park Avenue".

Elizabeth Hawes wrote that the Ritz Tower's construction "changed the direction of residential architecture" with its vertical emphasis.