Vincent Cavallaro - Bygone Installations

Bygone Installations

• 1960 — Commissioned art for The Gaucho Room (aka El Gaucho Restaurant), The Summit Hotel (51st & Lexington)

Designed by Morris Lapidus, Loews Corporation built and opened the hotel in 1961. Lapidus gave the Gaucho room an Argentine flavor, where walls looked like cowhide, lamp fixtures were shaped like steer skulls and the ceiling was ornamented with cattle brands. The Gaucho was modeled on a restaurant of the same name at the Americana Hotel in Bal Harbour, Florida (now the Sheraton Bal Harbour). Loews remodeled it in 2002, renaming it "Metropolitan." Loews sold it to Hilton Hotels Corporation in 2003, and is renamed it the "Doubletree Metropolitan." On March 29, 2005, the New York City Landmarks Commission designated the Summit Hotel as a Landmark.

• 1966 — 30 lithographs for the Hilton Hotel, New York.