New Yorker Hotel

The New Yorker Hotel is at 481 Eighth Avenue, occupying the western side of the avenue between 34th Street and 35th Street, in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The land lot is rectangular and covers . == Architecture ==

The New Yorker Hotel was designed by Sugarman and Berger Much like the contemporary Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building, the New Yorker was designed in the Art Deco style, which was popular in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s. Form and facade |alt=View of the New Yorker and other large buildings from Chelsea, Manhattan. The New Yorker is roughly at the center.The New Yorker has a relatively plain facade. The lowest stories are decorated with cast-stone blocks that contain floral designs. There are also some geometric designs on these stories. The fifth through 43rd stories are clad in face brick with some terracotta ornament. The building contains setbacks to comply with the 1916 Zoning Resolution. The setbacks, characterized by architectural writer Anthony W. Robins as "blocky", are ornamented with stone parapets that contain floral and rhombus patterns. The original sign was illuminated from 1941 to 1967. Power plant The hotel contains a power plant and boiler room on its fourth basement, which could support the needs of 35,000 daily guests at the time of the hotel's opening. When the New Yorker opened, it was one of the few large buildings in New York City with its own power plant. The power plant included four uniflow steam engines and one diesel engine. One of the steam engines was rated at , while the others were rated at . Each of the engines drove a direct current generator. The switchboard contained manual pushbuttons; one button crushed coal that was blown into the furnaces, while another button deposited ashes. When the hotel opened, the power plant contained more than 200 direct current motors, as well as an early example of a cogeneration plant. Other utilities The three largest motors in the original power plant were each capable of and supplied three of the hotel's four chillers (the fourth chiller was supplied by a steam engine). The modern-day hotel receives ice from a chiller plant in a neighboring building; the chillers produce ice at night, when energy costs are lower. The chiller plant replaced air conditioners that were installed within the windows of 2,000 rooms. Steam exhaust from the original power plant was used for functions such as heating. The original hotel contained public rooms on its first through fourth stories, as well as guestrooms from the fourth story to the roof. which cost a total of $150,000 (). The branch's main entrance was a carved bronze door leading to a lobby, where stairs led up to the second floor and down to the basement. The stairs to the second floor were made of red and black marble and were decorated with a pair of murals by Jambor, which symbolized industry and commerce. The banking room itself had a terrazzo floor and marble walls and columns, as well as large windows on 34th Street. The room contained glass tellers' desks made of bronze and glass, and there was a department for the bank's officers on the eastern wall. The banking room was surrounded by a mezzanine on three sides. The bank branch was closed during the 1980s and was abandoned for several decades. Through Penn Station, this tunnel also connected to 34th Street–Penn Station on the New York City Subway's Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line (). it was being used as a storage area by the 2000s. The Coffee House cafe and the 250-seat Mosaic Room ballroom were constructed in the basement in 1955. The cafe and ballroom were connected to the lobby via a pair of escalators. After the hotel reopened, the basement had a self-service laundry and fitness center. In the early 2010s, the basement laundry room was converted to meeting spaces, each covering . as well as classical details like Corinthian columns and chandeliers. The dining salons could fit between 15 and 200 people each. The restaurants included the main restaurant; a "terrace restaurant", featuring live events and entertainment; a men's grill room called the Manhattan Room; a tea room; and a cafe. The terrace restaurant hosted both ice shows and Big Bands. The ice shows were discontinued in 1946 because of the expense of replacing the ice rink and because of the American Guild of Variety Artists' support for removing the ice shows, although they resumed in 1948 due to high demand. The Terrace Room's shows were discontinued permanently in 1950 after the federal government imposed a 20 percent excise tax on such shows. By 1999, the Terrace Room operated as a television studio for TV channel MSG. according to the hotel's managers, this made the New Yorker the first large hotel in the world with "a central system of radio with a radio receiving set in every room". Approximately 50 suites on the upper stories had private terraces. When the hotel reopened in 1994, it had 250 guestrooms, which by 1999 had been expanded to 1,005 guestrooms. These included 35 mini-suites, which overlooked the Hudson River and Lower Manhattan, as well as four deluxe suites, which had balconies. Following a renovation in the late 2000s, the hotel had 912 rooms, arranged in 17 layouts. During that renovation, the guestrooms were largely redesigned in the Art Deco style, with geometric carpets, star-shaped ceiling lights, and curtains. There are two rooms with terraces directly under the hotel's large "New Yorker" sign. In addition, Educational Housing Services operates 169 rooms on the 24th to 27th stories as part of a student dormitory. == History ==

The New Yorker Hotel was built by Mack Kanner, who had helped create the Garment District of Manhattan during the mid-1920s. Kanner had previously hired Sugarman and Berger to design the Navarre Building within the Garment District. Construction Kanner and Jacob S. Becker announced plans for a hotel at Eighth Avenue and 34th Street in February 1928, With 2,503 rooms, it would be larger than the nearby Hotel Pennsylvania, which at the time had the most rooms of any hotel in the city. The New Yorker would also be the second-tallest hotel in New York City, behind the Ritz Tower. Workers began excavating the site the same month. The George J. Atwill Company, the excavation contractor, employed 350 workers in three shifts. The American Bridge Company was hired in June 1928 to manufacture the hotel's steel frame, which was to include of steel. The excavation cost $1 million and, according to the New York Herald Tribune, was "perhaps the deepest cut ever excavated in Manhattan". At a ceremony on October 25, 1928, Kanner drove a golden rivet into the hotel's steel frame, where the superstructure had begun to rise above the foundation. By this point, the hotel was planned to contain 45 stories above ground. Seven hundred masonry workers and helpers began constructing the facade in January 1929. The strike took place amid allegations that masonry contractor John J. Meehan had directed workers to install brickwork of substandard quality. Kanner drove the last rivet into the hotel's steel frame in April 1929. Ralph Hitz was hired as the hotel's first manager that July. Hitz hired about fifty of his colleagues from Cincinnati, Hitz also hired Bernie Cummins's orchestra to play at the hotel. The hotel's facade had been completed in September 1929. In addition, it was the world's second-largest hotel behind the Stevens Hotel in Chicago. and it was one of two hotels near Penn Station with more than 1,000 rooms to be completed that year, the other being Hotel Governor Clinton. Opening and early years A pre-opening ceremony for the New Yorker was hosted on December 28, 1929, Eight hundred guests made reservations on the first day, Upon the hotel's completion, it employed 17 manicurists, 43 barbers, and numerous multilingual waiters. The New Yorker also employed 92 "telephone girls", who washed 450,000 pieces of linen per day. Hitz then decided to create the National Hotel Management Company, a national hotel chain managed by the New Yorker Hotel's staff. He acquired the Book Cadillac Hotel in Detroit as the first hotel in the chain in January 1932. Hitz renewed his original five-year lease for 30 more years in 1933, and Frank L. Andrews was hired the next year as the hotel's general manager. When Andrews was promoted to a vice president of the National Hotel Management Company in 1936, George V. Riley became the hotel's resident manager, overseeing day-to-day operations. The Equitable Life Assurance Society gave the New Yorker Hotel a loan of $6.5 million in 1938, and Leo A. Molony of the Hotel Pennsylvania was hired as the New Yorker's resident manager the same year. Hitz continued to acquire hotels for his chain, Andrews operation After Hitz died, Andrews became the New Yorker Corporation's president. The hotel had received three million total guests by 1941. The same year, the hotel's managers installed custom-made ultraviolet devices in the hotel's bathrooms, which it advertised under the name "Protecto-Ray". The Manufacturers Trust Company's president disclosed in early 1946 that it had taken over control of the hotel. The New Yorker's managers announced the same year that they would install television sets in some of the public rooms. The hotel's managers also installed TVs in 100 guestrooms in 1948, That year, the hotel spent $50,000 () to combine eight double rooms into one luxury suite. Gene Voit was named as the New Yorker's general manager in 1951. Andrews announced in early 1953 that he planned to spend $600,000 on renovating the hotel, hiring Eleanor Le Maire to redesign the lobby. Mid-20th century Hilton purchase and renovations Hilton Hotels agreed in November 1953 to acquire the New Yorker for $12.5 million, prompting Andrews to announce that he would retire from the New Yorker Hotel Corporation. Hilton Hotels took title to the hotel the following month and immediately started renovating the hotel, completing the first phase of the project in March 1954. A meditation chapel opened within the New Yorker that May. The chain allocated another $1.5 million to further renovations in June 1954, and it hired the Walter M. Ballard Corporation to convert the hotel's former Empire Tea Room into a restaurant for $175,000. Hilton Hotels refurbished the hotel's cafe and installed an escalator from the lobby to the cafe, the first escalator in a hotel in New York City. In addition, the chain planned to replace twin beds in 100 guest rooms, redecorate 45 luxury suites, Consequently, the federal government filed an antitrust action against Hilton in April 1955. The New Yorker was making a profit by the end of 1955, amid rumors that the chain was planning to sell multiple hotels to resolve the federal lawsuit. To resolve the suit, Hilton Hotels agreed to sell three hotels in February 1956, including either the Roosevelt or the New Yorker. Subsequent ownership Hilton sold the New Yorker in May 1956 to Massaglia Hotels for $20 million, As partial payment for the New Yorker, Joseph Massaglia Jr. of Massaglia Hotels sold the Senator Hotel in Sacramento, California, to Hilton. paying an estimated $20 million. Massaglia then negotiated for a year and a half to sell the hotel to New York Towers Ltd., an investment syndicate led by Alexander Gross. New York Towers renovated the main ballroom, lobby, and guestrooms, and it added air conditioning throughout the hotel. The hotel experienced a large fire that November, which killed one person and damaged the sixth floor. The New York City Fire Department ordered seven stories to be closed after the fire, although these stories reopened within two days, after the hotel's owners had conducted emergency repairs. In anticipation of the opening of the nearby Madison Square Garden arena, New York Towers renovated the New Yorker's two main ballrooms, as well as several smaller public rooms. The hotel's operators predicted that the arena's opening would attract additional conventions to the hotel. Gross's firm had fallen behind on mortgage payments by 1966, and the hotel went into receivership that April. According to The Wall Street Journal, "other real estate industry sources" indicated that the hotel had lost $4 million since New York Towers bought it. half of which came from seven mortgages. At an auction in December 1967, Hilton repurchased the New Yorker Hotel for $5.6 million. Hilton's public relations director said the chain had reacquired the hotel because the surrounding neighborhood was "coming back to life" with the development of Madison Square Garden and nearby office buildings. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the hotel largely catered to guests in the garment industry, as well as businessmen who were attending trade shows there. The New Yorker had downsized to 2,000 rooms, but it was still one of New York City's largest hotels. The medical center ultimately agreed to buy the hotel for $8.8 million; it made a down payment of $1.8 million and received a $7.1 million mortgage loan. In addition, it leased the underlying land from Hilton for 99 years, acquiring an option to purchase the land in the future Hilton closed the hotel on April 19, 1972. French and Polyclinic had wanted to begin converting the New Yorker immediately, with plans to open the hospital in 1974. At the time of the New Yorker's closure, the number of hotel rooms in New York City was declining, and the city had lost 3,800 rooms in 1972 alone, over half of which had been in the New Yorker. French and Polyclinic added some living spaces and administrative offices for nurses and staff, as well as space for its postgraduate medical school. State assemblyman Andrew Stein said the medical center's bankruptcy was a direct result of its acquisition of the New Yorker. The medical center's president, Stanley Salmen, resigned in late 1973 after controversies over the bankruptcy filing and the New Yorker's delayed renovation. To reduce its increasing losses, in September 1974, the medical center proposed converting the New Yorker into a homeless shelter for 500 families who had been displaced by emergencies. Manhattan Community Board 4, which represented the neighborhood, indicated that October that it needed additional time to consider plans for the shelter. French and Polyclinic unsuccessfully attempted to obtain private funding for the hospital from Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, and the city government rejected the shelter plan that November. The medical center continued to use the hotel as an office and dormitory but only occupied one-tenth of the building. French and Polyclinic officially abandoned its plans for the hospital at the end of November 1974. The cancellation of the hospital eventually forced French and Polyclinic to close completely in 1977. Further redevelopment attempts After French and Polyclinic abandoned its plans for the hospital, Hilton Hotels agreed to take back the hotel, The chain tried to sell the hotel but struggled to find a buyer. The New Yorker was one of three shuttered hostelries on Eighth Avenue in Midtown that were having trouble attracting buyers; the others were the Royal Manhattan Hotel and the 51st Street YWCA. The New York Daily News reported in June 1975 that the New Yorker owed the second-most real-estate taxes of any building in New York City, with $1.8 million in back taxes. Schatz planned to convert the building into 1,000 apartments. Hilton and Equitable Life allowed Schatz to extend his option, but he could not obtain financing from major savings banks because of the low occupancy rate of a nearby residential development, Manhattan Plaza. The church also acquired the neighboring Manhattan Center, which it had similarly bought at a deep discount. After acquiring the New Yorker Hotel, the Unification Church converted the hotel for use by its members, and it became the World Mission Center, the church's global headquarters. The Unification Church had about 1,500 full-time volunteers in the New York City area at the time; these volunteers would renovate the hotel themselves and use it as a dormitory. By August 1976, there were 150 volunteers living on the hotel's 20th through 30th floors. According to the Unification Church, its volunteers had been placed in "the best rooms, where the best plumbing is". The church requested in 1977 that the New York City Board of Estimate grant a tax exemption to the New Yorker, which had been valued at $11 million the prior year. The church stopped paying taxes in 1978, while its application for a tax exemption was pending. During the same time, the Board of Estimate had refused to give the Unification Church a tax exemption for three other properties, on the basis that it was not a true church. The New York Supreme Court affirmed the city's refusal to give a tax exemption for these buildings, but the New York Court of Appeals overturned the Supreme Court's decision in May 1982, ruling that the three properties did qualify for a tax exemption. Although the Appeals Court ruling did not specifically name the New Yorker Hotel, church officials insisted that the hotel was also tax-exempt. Ultimately, the New Yorker received an 83 percent property-tax exemption. The New Yorker did not operate as a commercial hotel, as all of the guestrooms were reserved for church members. The hotel largely housed unmarried adherents of the Unification Church, During the next decade, an increasing proportion of residents got married and moved away, and quality of life in the neighborhood improved. Reopening 1990s and early 2000s In May 1994, the Unification Church decided to convert the New Yorker's top eight stories to 250 guestrooms, marketing them to business travelers visiting Javits Center, Penn Station, and Madison Square Garden. The church also redeveloped the ground-floor banking space, although the remaining stories continued to operate as offices and dormitories. Barry Mann became the hotel's general manager. Also in 1999, nearly 400 workers in non-managerial positions joined a labor union after several workers complained about low wages and the presence of asbestos in the hotel. The New Yorker failed to attract business travelers as originally anticipated, so it joined the Ramada hotel chain in January 2000. Hotel management believed that the Ramada franchise agreement would raise revenues by up to 200 percent. Tourism in New York City had stagnated by early 2001, but business was even more negatively impacted by the September 11 attacks, which caused the hotel's profit margin to decrease from 25 to 5 percent. At the time of the attacks, the hotel had 1,100 rooms. Ten psychotherapists also rented offices on the 17th floor, and Educational Housing Services rented space for dormitories on the 24th through 27th floors in 2003. Kevin Smith, the president of the New Yorker Hotel Management Company, considered converting the guestrooms to condominiums but ultimately rejected the plan. Decreased cash flows after the September 11 attacks had prompted the managers to defer renovations, but tourism in New York City had begun to recover by then, and guests were being attracted to newer hotels. The project would cost $43 million and would include renovating the lobby and meeting rooms, adding a central HVAC system, and refurbishing the upper-story guestrooms. The lower stories would retain of office space and of dormitories, and the Tick Tock Diner and the La Vigna restaurant at ground level would be refurbished. A new LED sign was installed in advance of the hotel's 75th anniversary At the time, the hotel had 840 rooms. The project involved replacing guestroom furnishings; redesigning the lobby, entrance, and foyer; renovating the restaurant; replacing the individual air-conditioning in each room with a central HVAC system; and upgrading Wi-Fi and televisions. In addition, the Cooper's Tavern restaurant opened at ground level in 2007. The hotel also removed two thousand air-conditioning units from windows. The 2008 financial crisis caused a decrease in business, prompting the New Yorker to reduce its payroll by 25 percent during early 2009. The hotel's renovation was completed in February 2009 Following the renovation, the New Yorker had 912 guestrooms, including 64 suites. To celebrate the hotel's 80th anniversary, in 2010, its managers offered discounted room rates to guests who were at least 80 years old. The Unification Church, which still owned the hotel building, began marketing of office space on five of the lower floors in 2011. To make the hotel more appealing to business travelers, the church installed laundry machines on each of the hotel's dormitory stories, freeing up space for meeting rooms within the former laundry room in the basement. The Wyndham Hotel Group, which operated both the midscale Ramada chain and the upscale Wyndham chain, rebranded the New Yorker as a Wyndham hotel that March. At the time, the hotel had 1,083 rooms. Also in 2014, the Bar Below Kitchen & Cocktail Vault was announced for the hotel's basement. The Butcher and Banker steakhouse, developed by restaurateur Matt Abramcyk, opened within the former Manufacturers Trust bank branch in November 2017. In July 2023, M&T Bank began looking to sell the $106 million loan that it had placed on the New Yorker. Yellowstone Real Estate Investments bought the loan that September. The same month, the New York City Department of Finance publicized a deed transfer document indicating that a guest named Mickey Barreto had fraudulently attempted to transfer ownership of the hotel from his own company to himself in 2021, despite never having owned the hotel. Barreto had argued that a clause in the state's rent-regulation laws made him the hotel's owner, because he had claimed ownership of one room and because ownership of the hotel had not been subdivided; In February 2024, the New York County District Attorney's office charged Barreto with 24 counts, including 14 for fraud, after he repeatedly misrepresented himself as the hotel's owner; and, if convicted, faced several years in prison. By 2025, Korean chain Lotte Hotels & Resorts had taken over the New Yorker Hotel. == Notable people ==

Staff Hotel management pioneer Ralph Hitz was selected as its first manager, eventually becoming president of the National Hotel Management Company. An early ad for the building boasted that the hotel's "bell boys were 'as snappy-looking as West Pointers'" and "that it had a radio in every room with a choice of four stations". Guests , who lived in the hotel for ten years until he died The New Yorker hosted the headquarters of Major League Baseball (MLB)'s National League in its early years, complementing the Commodore Hotel across midtown, which hosted MLB's American League. During the 1941 World Series, the hotel housed the Brooklyn Dodgers, who were competing against the New York Yankees. The hotel's guests included such figures as Spencer Tracy, Joan Crawford, and Fidel Castro. The actor Mickey Rooney frequented the first iteration of the hotel, until he died there in 1943. == Impact ==

Critical reception A reviewer for The Washington Post wrote in 1999 that the hotel was popular among large groups, saying: "If being close to the action is important to you, you won't be unhappy. If you want a good night's sleep . . . well, make sure you're not on a floor occupied by, say, a high school band." A reviewer for The New York Times praised their room in 2000 as "clean, reasonably sized, and with a lovely vintage tiled prewar bathroom", but criticized the lack of soundproof windows, the crowded lobby, and the gritty character of surrounding neighborhood. Similarly, an Ottawa Citizen reporter said: "True, the 40-floor art deco hotel has a somewhat dingy exterior, but the location (near Madison Square Garden, Penn Station and Macy's) and the views (maximized by having guest rooms from the 19th floor up) belie the first impression." By contrast, a writer for the National Post called the New Yorker "a nice but unglamorous hotel" in 2001. The New York Observer wrote in 2011, "There was nothing bespeaking the New Yorker's pre-Moonie swagger, save for maybe the piano against the wall, behind a superfluous red cordon." Similarly, the U.S. News & World Report said that many guests praised the Wyndham New Yorker's "comfortable accommodations" but criticized the hotel's small rooms and facility fees. Replica The New York-New York Hotel and Casino in Paradise, Nevada, contains a replica of the New Yorker Hotel, which measures 38 stories tall. A portion of the New York-New York's interior was also designed to resemble the New Yorker Hotel's interior. == See also ==