New York City is home to some pretty luxe hotels. But how many featured their own working hospital with four operating rooms?
Only the Hotel New Yorker, still hosting guests on 34th Street and 8th Avenue but without the extravagance it had when it opened in 1930.
Among the amenities back in the day: More than 2,500 rooms (each one with its own radio). Ten private dining rooms. A 42-chair barber shop. Five restaurants.
This 1940s postcard, with the slogan “where night turns into play,” makes it sound like a decadent destination.
The New Yorker had a sports past too. Leo Durocher made it the Dodgers’ headquarters during the 1941 World Series. Joe Di Maggio even lived there.
Tags: Hotel New Yorker, Joe Di Maggio, Leo Durocher, midtown hotels, New Yorker Hotel, old hotels in New York City, old postcards
Ephemeral New York 
June 10, 2010 at 4:45 am |
The hotel developed a serious bedbug infestation a couple of years, while they were remodeling some of the floors for re-opening. I wonder how that’s going.
June 10, 2010 at 4:46 am |
I meant to say a couple of years AGO.
June 10, 2010 at 11:21 am |
I had been there twice, once in the 70s when some Moonies tried to entice me in and throw my cares away, as long as I joined up with them, and once in the 90s when I worked as a scab in a rock hall on 34th Street that was getting protests from Union workers which I wasn’t. We used the corner hotel as our meeting place on the upper floors then descended down to the rock hall and got to our work as the protests went on outside. As usual I didn’t make much there.
Mick
http://www.MykolaDementiuk.com
Lambda Awards Winner 2010/Bisexual Fiction for Holy Communion
June 10, 2010 at 3:04 pm |
Thank you for writing this unique blog post about our hotel.
@Josie I can assure you that the bedbug problem has been remedied and there are no bedbugs (or other vermin) in our hotel, and haven’t been since the renovation was completed in 2008.
@Mykola Yes, the hotel is owned and, to a lesser extent, operated by the Unification Church. Much has changed since the 70s, of course. I do hope you will return to visit us some day to see the changes. Many of the hotel management are non-unification members.
Eric Bryant, E-Commerce Manager
The New Yorker Hotel
June 11, 2010 at 5:06 pm |
[…] The faded glory of the Hotel New Yorker « Ephemeral New York […]
June 15, 2010 at 9:11 pm |
And don’t forget, it was Moonie headquarters!
October 29, 2012 at 1:56 am |
[…] (10) and Sak’s 34th Street (9) are ghosts. The Hotel New Yorker (6) keeps packing them in, while the Hotel Martinique (3) endured a tortured history as a 1980s […]
April 25, 2022 at 4:35 am |
[…] The Hotel New Yorker today may not be a five-star kind of place, but it had a better reputation in the mid-20th century. This is the first time I’ve seen it described as a “home of major-league ball clubs.” […]