indicated in 2015 that he wanted to construct a larger office tower with a luxury hotel on the site. Milstein subsequently decided to renovate the existing building and add an atrium lobby for $150 million to designs by SHoP Architects. In addition, 335 Madison Avenue was rebranded as the Company Building, and its space was advertised to technology startups. The renovation was largely completed by the end of 2019. Guests Among the hotel's early guests was William H. Newman, president of the New York Central Railroad, who lived there until his death in 1918, as well as architect William Rutherford Mead of the firm McKim, Mead & White, who was recorded as living at the Biltmore in 1919. During the 1920s, New York governor Al Smith also occupied a suite of rooms in the Biltmore Hotel. Use as meeting place Christopher Gray wrote in 2013, "The Biltmore, and in particular its clock, became almost as much an institution as Grand Central itself." The reclusive writer J. D. Salinger frequently met William Shawn, the editor of The New Yorker, under the Biltmore's lobby clock. Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald was also among those who met "under the clock at the Biltmore". In the hotel's heyday, hundreds of young women met with each other under the Biltmore's clock. Additionally, for several decades, the Belmore Cafeteria at the Biltmore Hotel was a common gathering place for New York City's taxi drivers. The hotel was a popular meeting place for college students because of its proximity to Grand Central Terminal, as well as to several clubhouses for Ivy League alumni. The New York Herald Tribune wrote in 1956 that up to 2,000 students gathered at the hotel on Fridays and Saturdays. During some holidays, more than half of the hotel's total revenue came from college students; in many cases, 16 to 18 students would book rooms at the same time. To attract these students, the hotel offered discounts of 40 to 60 percent. The New York Times wrote in 1957 that the hotel was "the unofficial headquarters here for college and preparatory schools". In 1970, the Young Women's Towne House took over 32 rooms at the hotel, renting the rooms to young women at discounted rates. Democratic Party use The Biltmore was also frequented by Democratic Party politicians, who frequently conducted deals at the hotel's Turkish baths and rented the function rooms during elections. This