The 1906 Knickerbocker Hotel

 

In 1902 developers J. E. and A. L. Pennock began construction of a luxurious hotel in the bustling Times Square area on the site of the John Jacob Astor IV's Hotel St. Cloud.  Astor, who owned the land at Broadway and 41st Street, stipulated that any hotel replacing the St. Cloud must cost no less than $2 million.  Designed by architects Bruce Price and Marvin & Davis it would be a mansarded Beaux Arts confection of red brick and white limestone with terra cotta ornament.

A year after construction started the developers began in-fighting, resulting in the resignation of the director and causing Astor to take over the project.  Astor, who had built the famous Astoria Hotel in 1897, retained architects Trowbridge & Livingston to design the interiors.  They added a visually-staggering three-story restaurant and bar modeled after the Chateau de Fontainebleau that could comfortably seat 2000 patrons.  The space included two electrified fountains designed by sculptor Frederick MacMonnies.

A 1916 postcard is entitled "After the Theatre at the Knickerbocker"

For the restaurant Astor commissioned Maxfield Parrish to paint a 30-foot long mural, Old King Cole and His Fiddlers Three, which “attracted much attention” at the private opening reception, according to The New York Times.  Other artworks included the mural, The United States Cavalry Charge by Frederic Remington and Charles Finn’s mural Masque of Flowers for what was called The Flower Room.

Named The Knickerbocker, the 556-room, 16-story hotel opened on October 23, 1906.  Astor had imported the chef of the Hotel Carlton in London to head the kitchens.  The elegant hotel offered rooms for one, with bath, at around $3.25 per night.

Six years later John Jacob Astor IV went down with the Titanic, having safely secured his pregnant second wife Madeleine a seat in a lifeboat.  His son Vincent (who was a year younger than Madeleine) took over the management of the hotel.

Because the hotel was conveniently three blocks from the old Metropolitan Opera House, tenor Enrico Caruso moved in with his family, living there until his death in 1921.  His daughter Gloria was born in their suite and he reportedly took all of his meals in the hotel restaurant using the same set of silverware.

When the announcement came that a peace treaty had been signed between the Allied Forces and Germany in 1918 ending World War I, Caruso threw open the windows of his suite.  There below, throngs of New Yorkers crowded the streets.  The tenor lead the masses in a spirited National Anthem, followed by the French and Italian anthems.

A year after the onset of Prohibition Vincent Astor closed the hotel, retaining architect Charles Platt to convert it to office space. Parrish’s now-famous mural was moved to Astor’s St. Regis Hotel. The grand restaurant was gutted and its fixtures and architectural details sold off.

Beginning in 1940 it became the headquarters of Newsweek Magazine, earning the new name The Newsweek Building.  The magazine moved out in 1959.

As the 42nd Street area grew seedier, the old Knickerbocker was neglected.  The once-elegant interiors became shabby and covered over with pseudo-modern dropped ceilings and paneling.  In 1980 it was converted to apartments for a short period, although it still housed garment showrooms.  When, in 1988, the building was threatened with destruction the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated it a landmark.

In 1998 a $14.6 million restoration of the façade, upgrading of elevators and air conditioning systems, and a redesign of the lobby was initiated by STL Green, which had purchased the property for $63.3 million.

In March of 2010 Ashkenazy, Crown Acquisitions and Highgate Holdings purchased the property, previously owned by the royal family of Dubai for about $170 million; a substantial decrease from the $300 million price tag in 2006. At this writing, the new owners intend to renovate it into a boutique hotel with retail space.

The exterior of the first two floors of The Knickerbocker Hotel has been ravaged over the decades, however the upper floors are remarkably intact.  As renovation proceeds, the grandeur of John Jacob Astor’s hotel may stir once again.

The 1894 Hotel St. Cloud Annex -- No. 143 West 41st Street

photo by Alice Lum

Along with its extensive real estate dealings, the Astor family was familiar with the business of running hotels.    The first John Jacob Astor started the tradition in 1836 with his Astor House—at the time the most opulent hotel in New York at the time.

In 1892 the fashionable St. Cloud Hotel sat at the corner of 42^nd Street and Broadway.  When it was built in 1868 it was far uptown and considered a risky proposition.   But the owners gambled on potential business from Cornelius Vanderbilt’s ambitious Grand Central Depot which was about to be constructed.  The New York Times later reported that “proved to be the case.”

For over two decades the Rand brothers had operated the St. Cloud.  Now, on October 19, 1892, John Jacob Astor IV purchased the hotel for $850,000—a staggering $19.5 million today.   In reporting the deal, The New York Times noted “In addition to the hotel proper, the property includes two four-story brownstone houses adjoining on Forty-second Street and a narrow vacant plot in the rear on Forty-first Street.”

Astor kept the Rand brothers on as proprietors and the press announced “no intention at present of rebuilding or in any wise altering the property.  It was bought merely as a real-estate investment for surplus funds, in accordance with the well-known policy of the Astors.”

Nevertheless, the pesky 16-foot wide lot behind the hotel was soon improved.  A year later Astor commissioned architect Philip C. Brown to design an annex to the hotel here.   If Brown designed any other buildings in his career, they are undocumented. 

photo by the author

Completed in 1894 the eight-story Romanesque Revival style structure was connected internally to the main hotel.  Brown faced the structure in buff-colored brick and stepped away from the Romanesque style long enough to lavish it with Beaux Arts decorations.  The architect treated the skinny addition with dignity, adding a dramatic three-story arched opening above the second floor.  Decorated with terra cotta, it foreshadows the self-confident theater architecture that would soon flood the Times Square area.

The annex offered additional rooms and rentable semi-public rooms.  As it was being constructed the Knickerbocker Whist Club was incorporated in the fall of 1893.  Organized by Edward A. Smith, Harry S. Williams, John Hopper and J. C. Wilson it started in the Broadway Central Hotel.   The card game had fallen out of fashion for a period, but was suddenly regaining popularity.

On March 8, 1894 The New York Times noticed that “The game of whist has been having a quiet but unmistakable revival not only in this city, but in other parts of the country, this Winter.  The youngest organization in New-York which devotes itself entirely to the game is the Knickerbocker Whist Club, whose rooms are in the Hotel Wellington Annex, at Madison Avenue and Forty-second Street.”

Although the Knickerbocker was the youngest of the clubs, it was among the best.  “The Knickerbockers do not say much, but they go right on winning matches with a regularity which is exasperating to their rivals,” said The Times.

In 1897 the club moved its headquarters to the St. Cloud annex; what The Sun called “larger and better quarters.”  The club managed to have its own private entrance to the building on 41^st Street.   The strait-laced Victorian players were quick to point out that there was nothing illicit in their games.

“The fundamental idea of this club is the encouragement of playing whist strictly as an intellectual amusement, no betting of any kind being permitted.”

The Sun commented on the affordable cost of joining the club.  “The annual dues have been fixed at the very moderate sum of $10, no initiation fee, and the rooms will be open to members from 2 to 12 daily.”

A year after moving in, the Knickerbocker Whist Club initiated a startling concept—they invited women.   On February 2, 1898 The Sun reported that “To-night will be the second guest night at the Knickerbocker Whist Club, 143 West Forty-first street, and a large number of women are expected.  The game will be conducted on the Mitchell compass system, and valuable prizes will be given to the women making the best scores.”

The experiment worked.  On February 13 The Sun announced “The Knickerbocker Whist Club has determined to place its quarters at 143 West Forty-first street at the disposal of women players, for their exclusive use every Monday from 2 to 6 o’clock, beginning to-morrow.  Several New York women have arranged to be on hand to organize a club of some kind.  The only expense for the use of the rooms will be the card money, 10 cents for each player.”

The newspaper approved of the forward thinking move that included the feminine sex in the games.  “This is certainly a move in the right direction, and it is an opportunity that should not be neglected by the many women players who have been wishing for suitable quarters in a convenient neighborhood.”

Other rooms were leased as the committee headquarters of the Republican County Committee and the Republican Party in the City of New-York.

In 1902 Astor ordered the demolition of the aging Hotel St. Cloud.  In its place he stipulated a grand hotel that would cost no less than $2 million.  The 16-foot wide annex on 41^st Street was allowed to stay; possibly because of its problematic dimensions.

It is tempting to think that the Knickerbocker Whist Club had something to do with the naming of the grand new hotel.  Whether or not, the 16-story Knickerbocker Hotel opened on October 23, 1906, after a full four years of construction.

The first floor of the annex was converted to the service entrance to the new hotel—removing the unglamorous deliveries from the sight of patrons and passersby.    At the same time an attic addition was constructed.  Two handsome copper-clad dormers crowned by peaked pediments were guarded by menacing griffins on pedestals.

photo by Alice Lum

John Jacob Astor died when the R.M.S. Titanic sank on April 15, 1912.  His 20-year old son, Vincent, immediately became one of the wealthiest young men in America, and new owner of the Knickerbocker.  In 1920 he converted the massive hotel to retail space on the ground floor and offices above.  The New-York Tribune mentioned that the property included “a 16.8 foot outlet at 143 West forty-first Street,” but gave no details on any related conversion.

However the annex, too, was transformed into office space.  In 1930 the new publishing firm, Walton Book Co., established it offices here.  One of the first books It published from No. 143 was a new edition of John Marshall’s “Life of Washington.”

The block of West 41^st Street suffered indignation throughout most of the 20^th century as industrial buildings, many connected with the garment industry, replaced older structures.   By October 1988 when the Landmarks Preservation Commission met to discuss landmark designation for the Knickerbocker, the 41^st Street block was decidedly gritty.

During the hearings the owner of the old hotel building objected “to including a small annex on 41^st Street,” according to the then-building manager Holly Hunter.

The stone griffins and marvelous copper dormers steal the spotlight from the building's other decorative elements -- photo by Alice Lum

Philip C. Brown’s only known work, the skinny St. Cloud Hotel Annex, survives today probably because of its abnormally narrow footprint.   Despite its arcane location and less-than-gentle use for nearly a century, it retains its dignified posture and its scary griffins on the roof.

 Many thanks to reader Rich Stueber for requesting this post

The 1901 Battle over 5th Avenue - the St. Regis Hotel

In 1901 John Jacob Astor, Jr. did what, to many socially prominent New Yorkers, was unforgivable.  While three previous Astors had demolished their grand homes to erect exclusive hotels, they did so when the upper-class neighborhoods where they stood were becoming less fashionable.

This time John Jacob Astor, Jr. went too far.  He purchased the mansions at the southeast corner of 5th Avenue and 55th Street, demolished them, and began construction of the 19-story St. Regis Hotel across the avenue from “Vanderbilt Row” – the blocks of Vanderbilt family palaces.  He betrayed his peers by contributing to the social crime of which New York’s elite bitterly complained: encroachment of commerce into the exclusive Fifth Avenue mansion district.

Astor intended his hotel to be “as convenient and as luxurious as the most expensive private house in the city.”  That did not, however, appease the neighboring mansion owners.

The firm of Trowbridge & Livingston was hired to design the structure. The relatively-young firm would go on to design important buildings such as the B. Altman Department Store on Fifth Avenue and J. P. Morgan’s Wall Street headquarters, however the St. Regis would be one of their most important early commissions. The architects opted for the then-fashionable Beaux-Arts style that was sweeping the city and country.

The limestone-clad hotel would be festooned with garlands, balconies, French windows and decorative wrought iron railings. An elegant mansard roof, monumental console brackets, and snaking copper cresting added to the Parisian air of the design of a building intended to hold court over “the Queen of Avenues.”

print from the NYPL Collection

While the wealthy neighbors huddled over the intrusive structure rising in their midst, the Bureau of Buildings halted construction a year after groundbreaking. The lush interiors of the hotel relied heavily on carved woodwork and expensive imported paneling. On May 14, 1902 Superintendent Stewart reported that wood had not been properly fireproofed. “The doors and such wood stuffs are supposed to be thoroughly fireproofed,” he said “but they have not been. ..I will not allow it, and will stop the work until they get the proper material, and replace what has already been put in.”

In 1903 blasting of the solid rock for the 40-foot deep foundation rattled the windowpanes of houses for blocks.  Millionaires filed an injunction based on the depth of excavations. They were subsequently disappointed when Justice Clarke ruled in the hotel’s favor.

By the spring of 1904, however, as construction was nearing completion, the neighbors devised another tactic. As The New York Times reported on May 13, “The new hotel is conceived and executed on a scale of sumptuousity quite without precedent. Naturally one of the first requisites of such a hotel is a license to sell liquor. It is evidently incapable of being sustained at that pitch of splendor upon a Crotonian basis.”

The New York State liquor law clearly stated that the consent of the owners of two-thirds of the private property within 200 hundred feet of the establishment was required. It also stipulated that no license could be awarded to a business within 200 feet of a house of worship – and the rising St. Regis sat directly across from Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church.

The St. Regis, soaring above its brownstone neighbors, across from 5th Avenue Presbyterian Church - NYPL Collection

The Times said “It is hardly to be supposed that the owners of the property affected, whether ecclesiastical or domestic, will acquiesce in a measure intended to make profitable what they unanimously regard as a nuisance. They must look upon the enterprising owner as guilty of ‘incivism,’ and it is not to be expected that they will be willing to condone proceedings so offensive to them…Nobody can blame a householder whose residence is in what has heretofore been a fashionable residential district for objecting to an eighteen-story skyscraper across the way or around the corner. Such a structure necessarily injures the value of his property for the purposes for which he desires to maintain it.”

Measurements were taken.  The lawyers of the neighbors found that property-line-to-property-line the hotel fell within the 200 foot limit, constituting a violation of the State liquor law restrictions. The hotel, however, measured the distance from the main entrance of the hotel to the main entrance to the church, establishing a distance a few feet within the allowance. Judgment was in favor of the hotel and the license was awarded.

While the battle raged on, the hotel opened on September 4, 1904. The Times, intentionally or not, added fuel to the conflict saying “The patronage which the management expects to attract is indicated by the locality in which it stands, the most exclusive residential section of the city.”

The completed hotel cost an astonishing $5.5 million including furnishings. The Palm Room was illuminated by a skylight supported by marble arches and hung with antique tapestries. Seven crescent-shaped paintings were executed by artist Robert Van Vorst Sewell. Critic Helen Henderson split "decorative" and "illustrative" hairs.  She complained that while the paintings were “carefully finished” and “exquisitely drawn,” they “defeat the purpose of decoration. They ‘illustrate’ the story of Cupid and Psyche.”

A library contained 3,000 books.  Two reception rooms, one paneled in white mahogany and the other in Circassian oak, were decorated with rare European antiques collected by the manager, R. M. Haan. The air throughout the hotel was filtered to remove dust and an electric plant and ice plant were housed in the basement.

“An idea of the decorative scheme of the St. Regis may be had from a description of the banquet hall. Here the walls are of paneled marble of a dull white color. The doors are painted to harmonize with the general scheme, while the spaces between the doors and windows are covered with rich tapestries, the hangings being of yellow and white Venetian velvets,” wrote The Times.

Not one to accept defeat, William Rockefeller stood his ground by purchasing a new mansion nearby at 7 East 54th Street on October 17. “The purchase by Mr. Rockefeller is taken to mean that he and his neighbors have not given up their fight against the Hotel St. Regis liquor license, and it is intimated that effort may soon be made to have the license revoked on the ground that the necessary number of consents from adjoining property owners has not been obtained,” said The Times.

John Jacob Astor responded by purchasing the home of James Everard at 697 5th Avenue adjoining the hotel to the south for $300,000.

In the meantime a smear campaign was started against the hotel. A month after opening stories were sent to newspapers about a bomb exploding in the hotel’s dining room, that guests were required to pay “per foot for filtered air,” that a chocolate eclaire cost “$500 per half portion,” and “it is possible to live on oysters at $126 a day at the Hotel St. Regis.” R. M. Haan complained that “this sort of thing is a positive injury to my business.”

The bad press was reversed on December 1 when Prince Sananaru Fashimi, the head of one of four royal families of Japan, arrived at the St. Regis for a two-week stay. The press covered the prince’s every move and New York society, always impressed by titles, took notice. Four days after the prince’s departure a dinner dance at the hotel in honor of Miss Corinne Robinson was announced by her parents. The debutante was a niece of President Roosevelt and The Times society page remarked that “it will be the first large fashionable affair given at the new hotel which may now compete with the Waldorf-Astoria, Sherry’s and Delmonico’s for patronage of this kind. Miss Alice Roosevelt, who has been in town for a week, will be present.”

Within the month it was announced that “Mr. and Mrs. I. Townsend Burden and Miss Gwendolyn Burden, who returned from abroad recently, are at the St. Regis. Mr. and Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, Jr., wll also make that hotel their Winter headquarters, and Mr. and Mrs. Oliver H. P. Belmont may be there also.”

The St. Regis had arrived.

In April of the next year William Rockefeller realized that while he had money, John Jacob Astor had friends. Senator Saxe, acting on behalf of Senator Elsberg, introduced a bill “for the protection of the respectable hotels.” The bill provided that the section of the liquor law restricting an establishment to be more than 200 feet from a house of worship and to require two-thirds assent of neighbors within the same area “shall not apply to hotels that have 200 rooms above the basement used for the accommodation of guests.” Lawmakers were blunt that the new law applied specifically to the St. Regis.

John Jacob Astor had won his war.

On April 15, 1912, Astor died aboard the Titanic and his son, Vincent Astor, took over ownership of the St. Regis and its sister hotel The Knickerbocker on 42nd Street. Eight years later Prohibition swept the country, dealing a serious blow to the hotel industry. Astor closed the King Cole Bar in the Knickerbocker, removing to storage the famous 30-foot long 1906 mural by Maxfield Parrish, “King Cole and his Fiddlers Three.”

As hard times continued, Astor sold the St. Regis to the Durham Realty Corporation in February of 1927. The company, owned by the Duke family, remodeled the rooms, had architects Sloan & Robertson create an addition on East 55th Street, and relied on the hotel’s reputation as a marketing tool calling it “fundamentally part of Fifth Avenue.” In 1935, after having been on loan to the New York Racquet Club on Park Avenue, the Maxfield Parrish mural was installed in the St. Regis. Helen Henderson again chimed in. “That quaintly humorous panel,” she instructed, “delightful as it is, is illustration rather than decoration.”

The now-famous 1906 Maxfield Parrish "King Cole and his Fiddlers Three" mural

The newly-renovated Art Deco dining room, called The King Cole Room, was one of New York’s most elite dining destinations for decades.

By the mid 1960s the hotel was in genuine danger of demolition. The owners leased it in February 1966 to the Sheraton Corporation of America, raising the eyebrows of New Yorkers who considered a chain managing the beloved hotel a sort of sacrilege.

Sheraton reacted with reassuring marketing release a year later. “While maintaining all the fine traditions for which The St. Regis has always been renowned, Sheraton has lavished a king’s ransom renewing its gilt-edged elegance. Expensive furnishings have been brought from France, in the fashion that found favor with two of France’s greatest monarchs. Rich carpets from the Middle East. Multi-faceted crystal chandeliers from Sweden. Ah, yes, the kings would be at home here. They would nod approval at the courtly service and the magician-like resourcefulness of the concierge. They would dine royally in a choice of restaurants respected for their grande cuisine and loved for their light-hearted sophistication.”



Diners in a Sheraton 1967 ad with Maxfield Parrish's 1896 "The Child Harvester" in the Old King Cole Room

Nevertheless, the striking King Cole Room was remodeled and the mural moved to a much smaller barroom renamed The King Cole Bar. In 2005 renovation began to covert 59 of the hotel rooms to 33 condominium apartments with prices ranging from $1.6 to $7.2 million.

Despite the changes to the grand hotel, it remains an important and cherished fixture on midtown 5th Avenue, what the New York City Landmarks Commission called “one of the most elegant and sophisticated Beaux-Arts style buildings in New York.”

The 1924 Roosevelt Hotel -- Madison Ave at 45th Street

Irving Underhill photographed the newly-completed building in 1924 -- from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

On midnight, January 16, 1920 the selling and manufacture of intoxicants became illegal in the United States.  The arrival of Prohibition, which some thought would reduce crime and domestic violence, and enhance living conditions for all proved just the opposite.  The enormous increase in illegal activities would not be noticeable for some time; but the effect on millions who were suddenly without jobs was immediate.

In Manhattan bartenders, brewery and distillery workers, waitresses, liquor store employees and sommeliers were suddenly out of work.  And Prohibition dealt a heavy and unexpected blow to the cash flow of the city’s grand hotels whose wine cellars were stocked with expensive and rare vintages.

Within months hotels failed.  On July 4, 1920 the New-York Tribune noted that three of New York’s resident hotels, including the Holland House and 20-year old Manhattan House, had shut their doors.   One year after Prohibition went into effect John Jacob Astor closed his elegant Knickerbocker Hotel.

The Tiffany Studios Building stood at Madison Avenue and 45th Street -- photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

And so it was perhaps startling to some when on September 2, 1922 the New-York Tribune announced that a $6 million hotel, 18 stories tall, was being designed by the well-known architectural firm of George B. Post & Sons.

Two months later, on November 25, 1922 both the height and the cost had risen.  The Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide reported that demolition had started on the massive brick and stone Tiffany Studios Building on Madison Avenue at 45^th Street where a “palatial hostelry, to be known as the Roosevelt Hotel” was to be built.  The structure had sprouted two more floors and the cost was now estimated at $10 million.

George B. Post & Sons released its rendering in November 1922 (copyright expired)

The project was spearheaded by a syndicate known as the United Hotels Company of America.  The Record & Guide reported on the projected 1,107 rooms and baths, “several spacious restaurants and private dining rooms.” 

Engulfing the entire block from Madison to Vanderbilt Avenue and from 45^th to 46^th Streets, it took advantage of the site directly over the Grand Central tracks.  The Guide noted it “will have an entrance from the Grand Central Terminal, which will be a great advantage to incoming and outgoing railroad passengers.”  In addition, the New-York Tribune noted on November 19 that the hotel was to have “a series of rooms which will be reserved for persons who wish to remain overnight only or for a few hours while waiting for train connections.”

The planners included stores and leased office space along the sidewalk level.  It was an unusual move and according to the 1987 New York 1930, Architecture and Urbanism Between The Two World Wars, was intended to compensate for the lost revenues caused by Prohibition.

Less than five months into construction, the hotel’s leasing agent, Douglas L. Elliman & Co. reported that already more than half of the store space was rented.  Among the “important” leases was signed by the Knox Hat Company, whose upscale store traditionally provided headwear for United States Presidents.

The hotel's massive size was captured in a postcard (copyright expired)

Just under two years after construction began, the Roosevelt Hotel neared completion.  On September 14, 1924 The New York Times noted that, once again, the height and the cost had changed—now 22 stories tall and costing $12 million.  The exterior of the massive brick and stone structure melded with the Adamesque architecture of the other buildings of what was then called “the Grand Central Group;” and later known as “Terminal City.”

But inside, George B. Post & Sons drew from colonial America.  The 42^nd Street vestibule contained a replica of the doorway into St. Paul’s Chapel downtown, built in 1764.  It opened into a lobby dripping with American references.   The architects used Homewood, an 1809 Baltimore mansion, and the New York City Hall for inspiration here.  Iron panels flanking the stairs were copies of those in City Hall.  The iron balcony railings were taken from an old mansion on Irving Place, and the iron rails in the arcades were copied from leaded glass sidelights of various colonial American doorways.

Reproduction Chippendale chairs and colonial details added to the historical motif.

For the 20-foot wide paneled lounge facing Madison Avenue, inspiration was taken from a room of the colonial house in Coventry, Connecticut installed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  The New York Times added “A handsome and ornamental office desk screen is based on the original in the Hamilton House (1812), Philadelphia.  ‘Homewood’ provided the designs for the cornice in the ‘working lobby’ and also in the mezzanine balcony.”

Other colonial homes used for inspiration were the 18^th century Octagon House in Washington D. C., Kenmore, a 1753 Virginia mansion, the 1800 Gordon House in Savannah, and the Charleston, South Carolina Gibbs House built in 1752.

A postcard presented an elegant lobby.

The Roosevelt Hotel, named for the late President Theodore Roosevelt, was formally opened on September 22, 1924.  Although The New York Times remarked the following day that “It is equipped with the latest devices for service;” its planners cleverly did not target the millionaires who came and went at the Waldorf-Astoria or Plaza Hotels; but businessmen and visiting families.

When Theodore Roosevelt died, political cartoonist J. N. “Ding” Darling published a cartoon entitled the “Long, Long Trail.”  It depicted the former President in his Rough Rider outfit, waving good-bye as he rode off into the clouds.  On December 8, 1925 a bronze reproduction of the cartoon, four and one-half by six feet, was unveiled in the main lobby of the hotel in the presence of several hundred people, including many of the Roosevelt family.

Earlier that year the Roosevelt Hotel had added an innovative concept—a radio station atop the hotel.  The first transmission from station WRNY was broadcast on the evening of June 12, 1925.  And while the schedule included the expected musical programs “in which operatic singers and Broadway stars” took part, there was also a weekly educational program for high school students interested in science and technology.

On that first night, the venerable politician and attorney Chauncey M. Depew spoke to the children.  He began saying that many of the youthful audience “have made their own radio machines in whole or in part.”  He echoed the feelings of many 21^st century seniors who feel overwhelmed by the whirl of new technology.  “The boys and girls of today have so many opportunities for their mental and spiritual advancement, which never existed before, that we older people wonder how we got on at all.”

He then went on to proclaim that technological advances just might make life worse than in the good old day.  He pointed out that the greatest thinkers of history—Plato, Socrates and Aristotle—“had none of these modern wonders.”  And the greatest orators and artists “are still unapproachable by our times.”

The youngsters listening may have had more hope when Dr. Lee De Forest took the mic.  He was the inventor of the modern vacuum tube and the “phonofilm,” the new motion picture film that included sound.  Instead, he tossed cold water on their anticipation of television.

“Mr. De Forest said that the intricate difficulties which must be overcome before moving pictures in the home by radio are an every-night occurrence, are such that ‘most of us will not live to see this miracle,’” reported The New York Times.  “He also declared that he knew of no practical method of eliminating static disturbance.”

Although Queen Marie of Rumania stopped over at the Roosevelt Hotel in October 1926; she was the exception among royalty and heads of state.  Instead the hotel played host to politicians (many of whom ran their election campaigns from offices here), entertainment celebrities, and athletes.  It was also, interestingly, the favorite of the class of new American heroes—aviators.

Typical of the events held in the Roosevelt in the 1920s was the star-studded 1926 gala benefit given by the Authors’ League of America.  The ballroom was filled with luminaries from the stage and society, as well as “well-known persons of letters.”  Authors like Edna Ferber rubbed shoulders with Lulu Belle who was currently playing Lorelei Lee on Broadway in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.  And cartoonist Rube Goldberg did a skit with Harry Herschfield and Milt Gross.

Another was the February 1927 dinner for Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne hosted by alumni.  During the dinner he announced he was considering a game between Notre Dame and the University of Hawaii during the 1927 Christmas season.

What would be not only a hotel tradition, but a national one, began when Guy Lombardo and his orchestra first performed at the Roosevelt Grill on October 3, 1929.  The Royal Canadians would continue playing “the sweetest music this side of Heaven” here for three decades.  The music was transmitted live into the guest rooms via radio.

The annual New Year’s Eve broadcast from the ballroom which featured the orchestra playing Auld Lang Syne became synonymous with New Year’s Eve for families across the nation.  An up-and-coming bandleader, Lawrence Welk, got his start by filling in for Lombardo and the Royal Canadians when they took their summer breaks to play on Long Island each year.

In the 1920s and ‘30s, it would not be unusual to see celebrated aviators like Charles A. Lindberg, Richard E. Byrd or Amelia Earhart Putnam at a dinner in the Roosevelt Hotel.  But on the night of April 9, 1931 they were here not as guests of honor; but to pay tribute to a weatherman.

The next day The New York Times reported “Aviators who have crossed the Atlantic in heavier-than-air machines gathered last night for dinner at the Roosevelt Hotel to pay tribute to Dr. James H. Kimball of the New York office of the United States Weather Bureau as the man who, more than any other, had been responsible for the success of their flights.”

Nationally-famous journalist and newscaster Lowell Thomas was toastmaster and the room was filled with a who’s-who of the aeronautical field.  In addition to Lindberg, Byrd and Earhart were Clarence Chamberlin, Bernt Balchen, Frank E. Courtney, Armand Lotti and James Fitzmaurice, among others.  A message from President Herbert Hoover was read.

The system of underground tunnels linking the hotel to the train station and to other locations proved to be a convenience not only to guests, but to a criminal on July 31, 1931.  Mary Gilmartin had been the hotel’s cashier for several years.  Employees received their pay in cash and every afternoon at around 2:30 she would carry a tin box containing the day’s payroll for the afternoon and evening shifts from the paymaster’s office on the second floor to the cashier’s office on the main floor.  In the Depression years, the $5,000 payroll, in the neighborhood of $78,000 in 2015, was a tempting target.

The 27-year old woman picked up the box that afternoon, as always, and headed for the elevator.  Sitting in the corridor was a young man who twirled his brown felt hat on his finger.  Mary paid little attention to him as she pressed the elevator button.   She was suddenly attacked and the man fled with the box into the fire stairs eight feet away.

Mary ran back to the paymaster’s office and signaled all the watchmen at the hotel entrances.  The fire entrance led to a passageway under Vanderbilt Avenue, another under the main entrance to the hotel, and also to a corridor leading to an employee’s exit on 46^th Street.

The crook, who apparently had scouted Mary’s routine for several days and had his escape route well planned, slipped past all the watchmen.  Detectives surmised he had been an employee at one time.  The robber, about 25 years old, successfully made off with the unmarked bills.

Happy days were anticipated by the hotel industry when the end of Prohibition became imminent.  The Roosevelt Hotel planned a festive “Funeral of Old Man Prohibition” at “a repeal ball in costume.”  The New York Times reported on December 5, 1933 that already more than 1,200 reservations had been booked.

“At the stroke of midnight, twelve models will trumpet reveille, a burial ceremony will conclude with the opening of the casket supposed to contain the remains of Prohibition, which will let out, according to the announcement, ‘a beautiful female figure symbolic of the returning spirit of Bacchus.’”

But the repeal of Prohibition came a few months too late for the Roosevelt Hotel.  The Depression had taken its toll and for some time its management had denied rumors that the hotel was in trouble.  But in 1934 the rumored became fact when the Roosevelt was put into receivership and the courts approved a $25,000 bid on the hotel that had cost $12 million.

At mid-century, the Rough Rider Cocktail lounge featured palomino-printed upholstery and frescoes of Roosevelt's Rough Riders.

Conrad Hilton purchased the Roosevelt Hotel in 1943, calling it “a fine hotel.”  The Hilton chain was forced to sell it 13 years later, in April 1956, as part of an Anti-trust suit filed by the Government.

Although the Roosevelt Hotel continued to be a favorite spot for campaign headquarters—Thomas E Dewey not only lived here but ran his Presidential headquarters in the building, and Nelson A. Rockefeller had his Gubernatorial headquarters here in 1958, as did Kenneth B. Keating who was campaigning for Senate—changing times and an aging structure posed problems in the 1960s.

The famous Grill Room was closed the weekend before Christmas in 1963 “with no plans for reopening,” according to The New York Times; and in September 1962 newspapers announced “An Era Ends” when Guy Lombardo’s 33-year stretch came to an end.

Trouble continued in 1980 when, on July 19, the Colonial Room nightclub was destroyed by a flash fire and a month later the hotel received bad press when a Pennsylvania delegate to the Democratic National Convention, Cynthia Friedman, was robbed at knife point in the hotel corridor.

A year earlier the Pakistan International Airlines, heavily backed by Prince Faisal bin Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, signed a long-term lease on the Roosevelt, with an option to purchase after 20 years.   Nevertheless, the hotel, growing ever more dated, would not receive a face lift until that lease was up.

When the Pakistan International Airlines exercised its option to buy, it spent not only $36.5 million for the property, but initiated a $65 million renovation which prompted the ABA Journal on August 5, 1998 to proclaim it “once again reflects the simple splendor of its glittering past.”

Another updating was announced on January 1, 2011.  It resulted in the amenities expected by 21^st century travelers, including a rooftop lounge, fitness facility and Wi-Fi—none of which Chauncey Depew would have found necessary.   George B. Post & Sons’ handsome façade and historic-inspired interiors were little changed. 

photo by Billy Hathorn

The hotel has appeared in about a dozen motion pictures and in popular television shows like Mad Men.  Today the Roosevelt Hotel is the last unaltered hotel of Terminal City—built at a time when the Grand Central area bustled with the comings and goings of thousands of business travelers who needed a place to stay.

The 1883 Hotel Gerlach -- Nos. 49-55 West 27th Street

photo by Alice Lum

In the first years of the 1880's apartment living suffered the stain of tenement houses.  To differentiate the establishments that catered to financially-comfortable families from the squalid, crowded tenements, they were marketed as French flats.  

In 1882 the entertainment district was creeping up Broadway from 23^rd Street.  As it did, hotels and apartment buildings replaced houses and commercial buildings of a generation earlier.

In 1882 Louis L. Todd demolished the four rowhouses at Nos. 49 through 55 West 27^th Street and set architect August Hatfield to work designing a modern building of French flats.  Completed a year later, the Queen Anne-style structure rose ten stories to a tower.  Bowed bays along the sides captured the slightest breezes in summer.  A three-story base of rough cut stone supported red brick trimmed in stone.  But despite the comfortable accommodations, Todd’s French flats were quickly converted to a mixed residential and transient hotel.

photo by Alice Lum

Operated by hotelier Charles A. Gerlach, the building held on to its reputation as flats for a while.  When a fire broke out early in the morning on October 10, 1890, The New York Times remarked “There was a slight fire in the Gerlach Flat.”  The newspaper took the opportunity to pooh-pooh the structure’s fireproof claims.

“It was easily extinguished, and the damage did not amount to more than $100, but the incident proved that the big building was not as entirely fire-proof as people have been led to suppose.”

By 1893, when wealthy sportsman A. Gerland Hull had a suite here, it was formally known as the Hotel Gerlach.  The 40-year old Hull had studied medicine, but never practiced.  He preferred instead to live a gentleman’s life.  The New York Times noted that he “built a fine residence at Saratoga Lake” and was “one of Saratoga’s wealthiest and most respected citizens.”  The newspaper said that he and his young wife “moved in the best society and made themselves popular wherever they went.”

Sadly, Mrs. Hull’s heath had failed a year earlier and she died.  Despite his obvious grief, society did not believe that A. Gerland Hull was despondent until February 6, 1893 when, at 4:50 in the afternoon he committed suicide “by shooting himself through the head with a revolver,” as reported by The New York Times.

Interestingly, this child's face springs from a sunflower, the companion head on the opposite side of the entrance is winged.  Perhaps a silent tribute to a lost infant. -- photo by Alice Lum

Later that year, on December 13, Judge Henry W. Bookstaver of the Court of Common Pleas attended a dinner of the Fish Commissioners in the hotel.  The event lasted until nearly 2:00 in the morning and there was apparently drink to be had--of which the Judge partook freely.

The Evening World reported that “Policeman Carlin, of the East Fifty-first street station, found Judge Bookstaver wandering about in aimless fashion in Fifth avenue, near Forty-sixth street, a 3:30 o’clock this morning.

“He questioned him, but the jurist was dazed and could give the policeman no information.

“The officer saw blood streaming from a cut on Judge Bookstaver’s nose, and led him to the station.”

Bookstaver had been beaten “at the hands of a highway robber,” opined the newspaper.  Although the police could not get a coherent statement from him, he did realize that his watch and chain were missing.  He could not decide if he had lost anything else.

A doctor diplomatically tried to put the best light on the situation for the judge.  He told reporters he did not think the judge was intoxicated; however Bookstaver could not remember anything.  “It was as if two or three hours had been lost from his life.”

Palm trees wave from the roof in 1895.  The artist creatively added a few floors for impact -- "King's Photographic Views of New York" (copyright expired)

Unfortunately for Gerlach and his wife, Nettie, the Financial Panic of 1893 proved disastrous for the business.  On June 23, 1894 he listed his assets as $90 and his liabilities as $645,579.  The Evening World ran the lugubrious headline “Gerlach May Close.”  Calling the building “very handsome from an architectural standpoint,” the newspaper noted that “The hotel has been quite popular as a family hotel, and has always catered to an exclusive and fashionable patronage.”

An example of that “exclusive and fashionable patronage” was provided earlier that year, in February, when Mrs. Archibald A. Hutchinson lost a diamond and turquoise bracelet while on the way home from the house of a friend on West 78^th Street.  The bracelet was valued at $400 (around $10,000 today).

A few days later it turned up only a half block away from the Gerlach.  “Tuesday evening two colored men entered a pawnshop at Sixth Avenue and Twenty-seventh Street,” reported The New York Times, “and one of them produced Mrs. Hutchinson’s bracelet and asked the pawnbroker to loan $100 on it.  The pawnbroker refused, and the negroes went away, but were arrested by two Central Office detectives who had been watching them.”

Despite Charles Gerlach’s financial problems, he managed not only to keep the hotel going, but to retain proprietorship.  In 1895 King’s Photographic Views of New York called it "an elegant structure, absolutely fireproof, furnished and equipped with every convenience that can add to the comfort and enjoyment of its guests.  It offers all that is possible for luxuriousness in furnishings and delight in cuisine.”

That year Family Apartments rented for between $800 and $2000 a year; while transient guests paid $4.00 and upward per day.  One of the residents that year was Yugoslavian scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla.  His laboratory was located at No. 33-35 South Fifth Avenue.  Here he worked on his experiments in fluorescent lighting and wireless transmission of power.  The lab and the hotel were approximately 30 blocks apart—the perfect distant for experimenting with wireless transmissions.

Tesla erected his transmission equipment on the roof of the lab building downtown.  With his assistant Diaz Buitrago in charge of the transmitter, Tesla set up receivers on the roof of the Hotel Gerlach.  It was here that he proved that electrical energy could be received remotely.

Around 2:30 a.m. on March 13, 1895, a fire broke out on the ground level of the South Fifth Avenue building.  The entire laboratory was destroyed.  The New York Times lamented “The wizard and rival of Thomas A. Edison was burned out.  His shop, plant, all his apparatus for conducting the scientific experiments on which the gaze of the world is riveted these days, were destroyed.”

Tesla returned to the Hotel Gerlach and closed himself in his rooms, not to be heard from for days.  The scientist emerged with a greater fervor for his work.  Two years later journalist Franklin Chester wrote in part “The daily life of this man has been the same, practically ever since he has been in New York.  He lives in the Gerlach, a very quiet family hotel, in 27^th street, between Broadway and Sixth avenue.  He starts for his laboratory before 9 o’clock in the morning, all day long he lives in his weird, uncanny world, reaching forth to capture new power to gain fresh knowledge.”

Meanwhile, the Hotel Gerlach enjoyed its respected reputation as travelers arrived from far points.  In 1897, the same year that Franklin Chester wrote his article about Tesla, 128 firefighters from the South stopped at the hotel.   The New-York Tribune wrote on August 17 “If the Gerlach Hotel should happen to catch fire any time within the next two or three days no one need worry.  The guests of the hotel went to bed last night in the calmest possible frame of mind, and with a soothing sense of security akin to that felt by a child when its mother comes to quiet it in the night.”  The newspaper explained that the “guests” were firemen “and from the South, where people eat fire.”

That same summer about 100 residents of Augusta, Georgia filed into the hotel, “including some of the most prominent business men of that city, and their families,” said The New York Times.  Indeed, the party of tourists, who intended to “remain in New York long enough to visit all of the attractive Summer resorts in this vicinity,” included a U. S. Senator and a long list of professors, colonels and captains.

After nearly two decades of running the hotel, Charles Gerlach stepped down.  On June 22, 1899 The New York Times reported that the hotel had been leased to Warren Leland, Jr. for ten years.  “It was also said that $150,000 is to be expended in general improvements to the house, which is to be opened under Mr. Leland’s management Oct. 1.”

Leland told reporters that he intended to change the name to the Knickerbocker.  Instead, E. M. Earle was put in charge of the hotel and it was renamed the Hotel Earlington.   From a marketing point of view, the name made sense.  Earle also ran the Hotel Earlington in Richfield Springs, New York; an upscale resort hotel where millionaires spent their summers.  In 1901 the hotel advertised what seems to be a bargain price for dinner.  “Restaurants and Palm Room, Orchestra; Table d’Hote Dinner, One Dollar.”  At the time Samuel Clemens and his wife and daughter were staying in the hotel.

Earle's renovations included an iron-and-glass sidewalk canopy -- (copyright expired)

Earle’s renovations brought the aging hotel up to date.  Rand, McNally & Co.’s Handy Guide described the Hotel Earlington in 1901:

Practically a new house is the Hotel Earlington, in Twenty-seventh Street, near Broadway.  Formerly known as the Gerlach, it was run as a family hotel, but now that it is to be used for the transient trade as well, it has been thoroughly made over, wholly remodeled on the inside, and refurnished, all at an outlay of nearly $200,000.  The building itself cost $1,000,000.

Among the innovations was a system of telephones and call bells that connected every room with the office.  A private electrical plant supplied power to over 3,000 electric lights.  The building was heated by steam and the elevators “are large and run all night from floor to roof.”

The hotel's new name was emblazoned over the entrance -- photo Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1GWTOOJJ

Earle had gutted the interiors.  “Only the walls and floors were retained in the reconstruction,” said the Handy Guide.  There were 250 guest rooms which were arranged so they could be opened into suites of up to seven rooms each.

Perhaps the most startling innovation came a year later.  Eugene M. Earle was also the owner of pedigree show dogs.  He transformed the tower room on the roof to a kennel for his 38 high-bred dogs.  The New York Times reported that “The cost of the kennels has mounted already to the sum of $2,500, an amount that might be begrudged dogs by any but a lover of the animals.  The surroundings are artistic, the woodwork being stained, the walls done in green, and hung with pictures.”

A kennel master kept charge of the dogs who had their own bathroom, and steam heater to dry them after baths.  “When the hour of exercise comes, they only run loose on the roof at certain hours.  A treadmill has been invented for them, and they wait anxiously for their turn at grinding the mill.”

Perhaps the extensive renovations, coupled with a $2,500 dog kennels, were too much.  On August 1, 1907, Eugene M. Earle filed a petition in bankruptcy.  The new manager, Guernsey E. Webb, decided that the best thing to do was to entirely revamp the hotel.

The architectural firm of Waid & Willaur was commissioned to redesign the upper façade.  The architects removed the Victorian trappings—the tower room and parapet; but left the lower floors intact.  The interiors received another make-over.  An advertisement in The Daily Telegraph on December 1, 1909 boasted “This well known, absolutely fireproof hotel, after being entirely renovated, redecorated and fitted up completed with new plumbing has now re-opened November 2.”

In September 1911 the hotel was host to an internationally-prominent figure.  Leonid Menschikoff, the former chief of the Russian secret police, came to America to “expose the Czar’s police.”    With revolutionary stirrings causing upheaval at all levels in Russia, “he admitted to reporters that he had come here ready to expose hired agents of the Russian Government who are posing as revolutionists, but against whom he says he has documentary evidence gathered while he himself was in the inner circle of the secret political police,” said The New York Times.  He warned Americans that they too were being spied on.

By now, the end of the line for the Hotel Earlington was not far off.  The entertainment district had now passed 27^th Street by and one by one the Broadway hotels in the neighborhood were closing.  In April 1915 the Hotel Earlington became another casualty.

On April 28 The New York Times said “The final closing of the Hotel Erlington, in West Twenty-seventh Street, last week, removes from the list of New York City hotels another of the popular hostelries which flourished in that section over a quarter of a century ago…The Hotel Erlington was always more of a family home, and for twenty years after its erection it was one of the most select houses of its kind on Manhattan Island.”

As the United States entered World War I, the old hotel was recycled as a servicemen’s hotel.  “The hotel, which has been vacant for some time, has been leased by the [National Service Commission] for the period of the war, at a nominal rental…As soon as it can be fitted up the commission will throw it open to soldiers, sailors and marines at nominal prices, which will lift the enterprise out of the charity class.”

Called the Service Hotel, it was operated by the New York War Camp Community Service.  The New-York Tribune commented on March 18, 1918 that the servicemen here “were representative of practically every section of the country and branch of the service.  Aero squad men from Mineola mingled with ambulance unit boys from Camp Dix.  The navy—regular and reserve—and the army—National, Regular and National Guard—had their representation.”

A soldier and a sailor use the library at the Service Hotel -- photo from "War Libraries and Allied Studies" 1918 (copyright expired)

With the war’s end, the old hotel, which was now sitting squarely in a bustling business district, was sold.  The New-York Tribune reported on May 15, 1920 that “It contains 200 rooms and covers 100x100, and is to be rebuilt into a store, office and showroom building at a cost approximating $200,000.”

The converted building filled with businesses, many connected to the nearby garment district.  One of the first tenants was Carmel Bros, “manufacturing furs and featuring children’s furs.”  Throughout the 20^th century the floors hummed with light manufacturing and sales rooms.

In 1938, in an attempt at modernizing, sleek granite slabs were plastered over the arched entranceway.  Later unattractive retail spaces were gouged out of the street level walls.  But overall the structure was barely tampered with.  Happily around 1981 the granite was removed and the original handsome entranceway reemerged.

The carved entrance was undamaged by the 1930s attempt at modernization -- photo by Alice Lum

Today the old Gerlach Hotel still looks like a hotel.  Called the Radiowave Building with a nod to Nikola Tesla, it is a stubborn survivor in a somewhat gritty neighborhood.

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