The exuberant entrance of a 32nd Street hotel

Even in lit-up-in-neon Koreatown, this turn-of-the-century building is a show stopper, with one of the city’s most striking and ornate facades.

Originally built as the Aberdeen, an apartment hotel, in 1904, this Beaux-Arts beauty on East 32nd Street has got all the trappings: garlands, columns, lion heads, flowers, various curlicues, a portico, and two god-like male figures guarding the doorway.

When it opened, the Aberdeen was in the center of everything, like Broadway theaters and Ladies’ Mile shopping.

But quickly the city moved northward, leaving the Aberdeen and other former luxe hotels, such as the Wolcott and the Martinique, behind.

In the 1920s, it made a name for itself as one of the first hotels to admit unaccompanied women.

It’s now part of the La Quinta hotel chain—probably the most voluptuous hotel building they own!