use the rooms, or they could sign long-term leases. The American Contract Bridge League also hosted tournaments at the Shelton, where a contract bridge club had leased a 15th-story lounge. In March 1946, the Knott Corporation bought the building from New York Life through the Charles F. Noyes Company for $3.35 million. The Noyes Company then arranged a $3 million mortgage for the hotel. Knott converted some space on the 15th floor to offices in the late 1940s, renting the space to tenants such as a wedding planner, the publisher Public Relations Society of America, and a photography company. 1950s and 1960s 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. Jay and Arthur Wells, representing Wells Television Inc., signed a contract to buy the hotel's lease in April 1957. The next month, they hired a syndicate led by Sidney Bressler to operate the hotel, which was renamed the Shelton Towers. Vic Tanny leased the hotel's pool in early 1958. Westchester County judge George A. Brenner, one of the investors who had leased the hotel, spent large sums of money on renovating the Shelton Towers but was unable to obtain more funding. New York County district attorney Frank Hogan indicted Brenner on charges of forgery in January 1959. Hogan claimed that Brenner had leased the hotel for 14 years with plans to renovate it, obtain a 75-year lease, and resell it to a large hotel chain. The