Savoy-Plaza Hotel (at left) and the Squibb Building , ca. 1930.
Designed by McKim, Mead &White and completed in 1927, the 33-story Beaux-Arts Savoy-Plaza Hotel was constructed as a companion to the nearby Plaza Hotel by the Plaza's owner, Harry S. Black. The hotel's penthouse was famously the residence of Adolph Zukor, the founder of Paramount Pictures. In 1958 after a buyout by the Hilton Hotel chain, the building became the Savoy Hilton. Following the announcement in 1964 that the hotel would be demolished for a new General Motors building, local advocates and preservationists staged protests and a failed boycott of G.M. products. The hotel remained open through the New York World's Fair but closed in October 1965 and was demolished late that year. The 48-story Edward Durell Stone General Motors Building was completed in 1968.