from the collection of the New York Public Library
Similar to his Gramercy Park, Samuel Ruggles's Union Square was ringed by substantial brick residences around a fenced park with a central fountain. The blocks of Fourth Avenue (later Park Avenue South) directly above the park were named Union Place. In 1848, six years after completion of the park, Ruggles began construction of an elegant hotel one block to the north at the southeast corner of 18th Street and Union Place.
Completed in 1851, the Clarendon Hotel was designed in the Italianate style. A cast iron portico sheltered the entrance within the rusticated stone base. The hotel's six-floor center section on 18th Street rose one story above the rest of the structure.
Ruggles leased the hotel to proprietor G. C. Putnam. His opening announcement on August 8, 1851 stressed its residential setting (as opposed to bustling Broadway), saying it would appeal to families "who desire the comforts and quiet of a more retired situation than the other hotels of New York." It continued in part,
The arrangements of this establishment are altogether superior to anything of the kind in this or, perhaps, any other country, being divided into suits of apartments, with bathing rooms and other water conveniences attached. It is furnished in the most elegant and expensive manner, equal to the best private residences of the city.
The garden of the Efraim Holbrook mansion can be seen at the left. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York
The Clarendon Hotel catered to both transient and permanent guests. An advertisement in 1859 noted, "The apartments, from the single room to the suite of any number desired, are provided with Bath Rooms, and all the modern conveniences. It is conducted on the Table d'Hote system, or meals are served in rooms."
By then, Kerner & Birch had taken over the proprietorship. Gerrit Kerner, who had been the steward of the exclusive Union Club, ran the hotel with military precision. A permanent guest, Richard Lathers, recalled in his 1907 memoir, Reminiscences of Richard Lathers,
The table service was exceedingly well organized. The waiters marched from the pantry in military order to place the food on the table and, after removing the covers of the dishes, marched in the same manner to deposit them on the side tables before waiting on the guests. The dinner was served punctually at a fixed hour, and those not present at any course lost it--for the courses were brought on with as much regularity as a private dinner.
On the first floor were "a couple of neatly furnished rooms," according to Lathers, for smoking. "After dinner, and after the theater, these smoking rooms were always filled," he said. Lathers listed some of the well-heeled figures who haunted the smoking rooms, including Ward McAllister, Governor John T. Hoffman, Charles Clinton, former President Franklin Pierce (a full-time resident of the hotel), and General Winfield Scott Hancock.
Perhaps the first foreign dignitaries to stay at the Clarendon Hotel were Lord and Lady Ellesmere, who stayed here with their daughter in 1853 while attending the Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations in the Crystal Palace. Quickly, according to Lathers, "the Clarendon [became] popular with travelers from all over Europe, and especially from England."
from the collection of the Library of Congress
On March 7, 1857, Lord Napier and his family arrived on his way to Washington. He was the newly appointed British Ambassador to the United States. High ranking figures would continue to stay here. On one day alone--October 22, 1870--the New York Herald reported that opera star Christina Nilsson, General E. W. Serrell, and Russian Minister Count Calacazy had checked into the hotel.
Gerrit Kerner died in 1862 and his son, Charles H. Kerner took over the hotel's operation. There was no change in the level of service and hospitality.
The Grand Duke Alexis of Russia arrived on November 28, 1871. He was given the equivalent of today's secret service protection. The New-York Tribune reported, "When he landed three detectives guarded him; at the serenade on Tuesday night they were near at hand; and they are now quartered at the Clarendon Hotel." Within the Clarendon, the Grand Duke was able to relax from his many official duties. Lathers said he "visited this headquarters of international goodfellowship for the relaxation of a cigar and a glass of the best wine in the city after the tiresome formalities of public recaptions."
While staying here the Grand Duke Alexis was honored by the city with a grand ball. Harper's Weekly, December 1871.
In 1884, New York's Great Industries said that because of its proximity to "all of the theatres, halls and clubs, the Clarendon has many recognized advantages as a place of residence for the leading prima donnas and artistes who visit the metropolis, while the nobility and gentry of the Old World here find those congenial surrounds and superior service which has made the Clarendon so justly celebrated all over Europe."
Czech composer Antonín Leopold Dvořák, his wife and two of their children arrived in America on September 27, 1891. In his 2022 Distant Melodies, Edward Dusinberre writes they were "met at the port of Hoboken by an enthusiastic delegation of Czech citizens and people associated with the National Conservatory before being installed in luxurious rooms at the Hotel Clarendon near Union Square." Unfortunately, the quiet residential nature of the location that was so touted in 1851 was gone. "The presence of a new Steinway grand piano was not enough to distract Dvořák from the unaccustomed noise of the city," writes Dusinberre. The family was soon installed in rooms in a nearby rowhouse on East 17th Street.
To the shock of many hoteliers, when C. H. Kearny's lease was up in April 1893, he did not renew it. In reporting that the lease was available on April 8, The New York Times mentioned, "For many years the Clarendon was without a rival as the favorite family hotel of the city. It was always a home-like house, with spacious rooms, genteel service, and pleasant surroundings." But now the hotel which was once feared to be too far uptown, was too far downtown. "The construction of other fine family hotels further up town within the last few years has made the Clarendon, however, less desirable from a lessee's standpoint."
Charles L. Briggs, who had been head clerk for years, took over the lease in a valiant but hopeless endeavor to save the old hostelry. Five years later, on October 13, 1898, The Sun reported, "To-day the solitary tenant of the building is George, the old porter, who for nearly a quarter of a century has been employed in the house." The newspaper lamented, "In any other city than New York it would probably survive to-day with its former prosperity, the resort of just the sort of persons who frequented it in the past. But the times change and people change with them more rapidly here, and the Clarendon...has been deserted by its patrons for the more fashionable and more modern hotels uptown." The article reminisced,
That seven Ministers of foreign Governments slept one night in the hotel was one old boast of its manager...The aristocracy of genius went there as well. Adelaide Ristori stopped there on her visits to this country, and so did Brignoli, Carolotta Patti, and Etelka Gerster. Adelaide Neilson, the actress, and Christine Nilsson, the singer, were regular guests of the hotel, and when Helen Modjeska first came from San Francisco to try her fortunes here, it was at the Clarendon that she lived.
The Clarendon Hotel survived, vacant, until 1909. Developer Henry Corn had purchased it a year earlier and on September 15, 1909, the Record & Guide reported that the venerable structure "is to be torn down and immediately replaced with a 20-story high-class office building of the best type." Named the Clarendon Building and designed by Maynicke & Franke, it survives.
photograph by Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York
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