TITANIC'S RICHEST PASSENGER BUILT NYC HOTEL

FUNCTION....The Versailles room at the hotel is prepared for a function.

A CENTURY after the Titanic sank, the legacy of the ship's wealthiest and most famous passenger lives on at the luxury hotel he built in New York City.

John Jacob Astor IV was one of the richest men in America when he died in 1912. Astor went down with the ship after helping his pregnant wife escape into the last lifeboat.

Astor founded the St Regis Hotel on Fifth Avenue in 1904. The expensive hotel still has butlers in black tailcoats roaming the hallways. The elaborate lobby with its frescoed ceiling is exactly the same.

And the thousands of leather-bound books that he collected have been preserved on the same bookshelves for 100 years.

This year the hotel paid tribute to Astor with a small dinner in his library. (AP)