The Knott Corporation sold the hotel in April 1951 to Louis Schleifer, at which point the hotel was assessed at $4 million. Schleifer took title to the building in August 1951, with plans to keep it as an investment, and Joseph Wolf became the hotel's manager. Schleifer leased the hotel in March 1952 to Herbert R. Weissberg of 523-527 Lexington Inc. for 21 years at $500,000 per year. Less than a year later, in February 1953, Lawrence A. Wien bought the hotel from Schleifer. The Fink brothers acquired all of the stock in the Hotel Equities Company, which had a long-term lease on the building in August 1954. The Finks planned to spend $500,000 on renovating the hotel, including the pool, baths, gymnasium, lobby, dining rooms, assembly rooms, and guestrooms. By then, Buster Crabbe operated the hotel's swimming pool and health club, and about three stories of the hotel had been converted to office space. The ballroom was closed in December 1956 and turned into a laboratory for color-film processing company Authenticolor.
