Hotels Archives - Page 14 of 24

Plaza Hotel, New York City

February 9, 2018June 24, 2016 by Derek Strahan

The Plaza Hotel at the corner of Fifth Avenue and West 59th Street, around 1907-1915. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The hotel in 2016:

New York’s Plaza Hotel is named for the Grand Army Plaza, which is located here at the southeast corner of Central Park. It has since become a prominent historic landmark, but when the first photo was taken it was virtually brand new. It replaced an earlier Plaza Hotel that had been completed in 1890. This eight-story building was damaged by a fire in 1902, and although it remained structurally sound, it was sold and demolished a few years later.

The new owner hired architect Henry J. Hardenbergh, whose previous commissions included the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. His design for the new Plaza Hotel was no less grand, and the 17-story hotel was completed in 1907 after two years of construction, at a cost of $12.5 million. Over the years, the hotel has seen plenty of wealthy, prominent guests, as well as some notable owners. Conrad Hilton, the founder of Hilton Hotels, purchased it in 1943 for $7.4 million and, after changing hands several more times, it was sold to Donald Trump in 1988 for $407.5 million.

Since then, it has gone through several more ownership changes, and from 2005-2008 the century-old hotel was significantly remodeled. Many of the hotel rooms were converted into condominium units, selling for upwards of $10 million per unit. Today, instead of over 800 hotel rooms, it now has just 282 in addition to the 181 condominiums. However, on the exterior the hotel looks essentially the same as it did when the first photo was taken, and it is listed as a National Historic Landmark on the National Register of Historic Places.

Waldorf-Astoria and Knickerbocker Trust, New York City

February 9, 2018June 18, 2016 by Derek Strahan

Looking south along Fifth Avenue toward the intersection of 34th Street, around 1904, with the Knickerbocker Trust Company building in the foreground and the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel beyond it. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2016:

The two buildings in the first photo, the Waldorf-Astoria and the Knickerbocker Trust Company Building, have been discussed in further detail in earlier posts, but this photo here provides a particularly good view of the architecture of the Knickerbocker building, which had been completed around that time. It was designed by McKim, Mead & White, a prominent architectural firm whose other significant works of the era included the Boston Public Library and New York’s Penn Station. Unfortunately, although the bank building is technically still standing here, subsequent alterations have completely destroyed the original architecture, including the addition of 10 stories on top of it in 1921 and the replacement of the facade in 1958 with the bland exterior that it now has. As for the Waldorf-Astoria, it is obviously no longer standing; the famous hotel was demolished in 1929 and the Empire State Building was built in its place.

Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York City

February 9, 2018June 17, 2016 by Derek Strahan

The Waldorf-Astoria, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street, around 1900. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2016:

The Waldorf-Astoria is one of the most famous hotels in New York City history, and it all began as a result of a feud within the Astor family, whose origins dated back to 1827, when William B. Astor, Sr. purchased a significant amount of property in present-day Midtown Manhattan, including a section of Fifth Avenue from 32nd Street to 35th Street. With a purchase price of $20,500 (about $433,000 today), this largely undeveloped land on the outskirts of the city turned out to be a wise investment, and Astor became the wealthiest man in America.

Here along Fifth Avenue, two of his sons split the block on the west side, with John Jacob Astor III and his wife Charlotte Augusta Gibbs living on the corner of 33rd Street, and William B. Astor, Jr. and his wife Charlotte Webster Schermerhorn at 34th Street. As explained in more detail on the Daytonian in Manhattan blog, a rivalry formed between their wives, which ultimately led to John’s son William Waldorf Astor demolishing his father’s house and building a large hotel, named the Waldorf Hotel, that overshadowed his aunt Charlotte’s house right next door. The noise and traffic generated by the hotel was, as desired, a significant nuisance in the previously residential neighborhood, and Charlotte soon moved out of the house.

When Charlotte moved out, her son, John Jacob Astor IV, announced plans to build a competing hotel on the property, named the Astoria Hotel. It was designed by Henry J. Hardenbergh, the same architect responsible for the Waldorf, and by the time it was completed in 1897 the two sides of the family had agreed to consolidate the two into a single hotel, named the Waldorf-Astoria. The first photo here was taken soon after, and it shows the distinction between the earlier Waldorf Hotel on the left, with the significantly larger Astoria on the right. Together, they occupied much of the block, and with 1,300 rooms it was the largest hotel in the world at the time.

Although he started the hotel, William Waldorf Astor did not remain in the United States. He moved to England and became a British subject, earning the title of 1st Viscount Astor in 1917, two years before his death at the age of 71. As for John Jacob Astor IV, he is probably best known today for having been the richest man aboard the Titanic when it sank in 1912. He had a net worth of around $87 million at the time (around $2 billion today), and he and his second wife Madeline had been returning from their honeymoon aboard the ship. Madeline and their unborn son survived the sinking, but Astor did not. Coincidentally, the hearings for the U.S. Senate inquiry into the disaster were subsequently held here at the hotel.

In its heyday, the Waldorf-Astoria functioned not only as a high-end hotel, but also as a restaurant and event venue for the wealthy New Yorkers who lived nearby. However, by the 1920s the relatively new hotel was already showing its age. Its Victorian interior decor, while fashionable in the 1890s, was soon out of date. Making matters worse, most of New York’s upper class, including the Astor family themselves, had moved further uptown, to mansions in the vicinity of Central Park. This, combined with Prohibition’s ban on alcohol sales, hurt their dining rooms, which had once been one of the hotel’s most profitable business.

The hotel closed in 1929, and two years later reopened in a new building further uptown on Park Avenue, where it still stands today. The original building here on Fifth Avenue was then demolished to clear the space for the Empire State Building, which was completed in 1931 after just over a year of construction.

Lost New England Goes West: Palace Hotel, San Francisco (3)

June 1, 2016May 31, 2016 by Derek Strahan

The Palace Hotel in San Francisco, seen from the corner of Market, Kearny, and Geary Streets in San Francisco, probably on April 15, 1906. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

The new Palace Hotel, around 1910-1920. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Bain Collection.

The hotel in 2015:

The first photo here shows the original Palace Hotel as it appeared shortly before it was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. The caption reads “The Palace April 15. Copyright 1906 Pillsbury Picture Co.”, so it appears to have been taken on April 15, 1906, just three days before the disaster. The hotel had been a San Francisco landmark since its completion in 1875, and as explained in an earlier post it had been specifically designed to withstand both earthquakes and fire. However, while its thick walls survived the earthquake itself, the building was gutted by the subsequent fires, as seen in the first photo of this earlier post, which was taken as the building burned. Yet another previous post, taken from almost the same spot as this April 15 scene, shows the burned-out remains of the hotel and other buildings along Market Street.

Three years later, the hotel was rebuilt on the same site, as seen in the second photo, and it retained its status as one of the city’s premier hotels. Several years after the second photo was taken, President Warren G. Harding died in an eighth-floor suite on this side of the building. He was visiting the city during a tour of the west coast, arriving on July 29, 1923. His health had been rapidly deteriorating amid a busy schedule, and he spent several days in the hotel before his sudden death from an apparent heart attack on August 2.

Today, not much has changed in the “new” Palace Hotel’s exterior appearance. It remains a prominent San Francisco hotel, and the buildings on either side of it are also still standing from the second photo. Market Street is as busy as it was in the early 1900s, and trolleys still run down the middle of the street as they did a century ago. Part of the “F” line of the Muni system, it runs historic streetcars, a few of which date back to the era the second photo was taken. The one in this particular 2015 scene is a PCC streetcar that was built in 1948, making it still far closer in age to the first two photos than to the present-day.

This post is part of a series of photos that I took in California this past winter. Click here to see the other posts in the “Lost New England Goes West” series.

Lost New England Goes West: Palace Hotel Fire, San Francisco

May 15, 2016 by Derek Strahan

The Palace Hotel, seen from the corner of Market and Montgomery Streets as it burned on April 18, 1906, in the aftermath of the earthquake. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

The scene in 2015:

As explained in an earlier post, the Palace Hotel was San Francisco’s premiere hotel from when it opened in 1875 until its destruction in 1906. Like so many other buildings across the city, the hotel survived the earthquake itself with minimal damage, but fires soon began to spread throughout the city. Once they reached the hotel, the substantial amount of wood paneling inside allowed the flames to quickly engulf the entire building, as seen in the first photo. In the foreground, soldiers stand guard on Market Street, watching helplessly as one of the city’s most prominent landmarks was gutted by fire.

The view in this post, taken facing the opposite direction on Market Street, shows the burned-out remains of the hotel after the fire. It was soon demolished, and in 1909 the present-day Palace Hotel opened on the same spot. There is one building left standing from the first photo, though. Barely visible on the far right of the photo is the Monadnock Building, which was still under construction at the time of the earthquake. It survived the fires, and was completed the following year.

This post is part of a series of photos that I took in California this past winter. Click here to see the other posts in the “Lost New England Goes West” series.

Lost New England Goes West: Fairmont Hotel, San Francisco

May 15, 2016May 12, 2016 by Derek Strahan

The Fairmont San Francisco, seen from the corner of California and Powell Streets in the aftermath of the April 18, 1906 earthquake. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The hotel in 2015:

The Fairmont Hotel was still under construction when the 1906 earthquake hit. Structurally, it was heavily damaged, but it survived, and for a time was even used for emergency planning meetings before the fires made their way up Nob Hill. The burn stains over the windows in the first photo show the extent of the fire that gutted the hotel, but it would soon be repaired. The owners hired architect Julia Morgan to oversee the reconstruction, and the hotel opened exactly a year after the earthquake.

Nearly 40 years later, in 1945, it played a role in establishing the United Nations. While World War II was just coming to an end that summer, representatives from 50 countries met here at the hotel to draft the United Nations Charter, which was later signed at the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center, and went into effect on October 26, 1945. Since then, it has remained a prominent San Francisco hotel, and it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

This post is part of a series of photos that I took in California this past winter. Click here to see the other posts in the “Lost New England Goes West” series.