Park Central Hotel

The Park Central Hotel is a 25-story, 761-room[2] hotel located southwest of Carnegie Hall at 870 7th Avenue (between West 55th and 56th Streets) in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was designed in the Renaissance Revival style and opened on June 12, 1927. The Park Central is an independent hotel managed by Highgate Holdings.

This article is about the hotel in Manhattan. For other hotels and uses, see Park Central (disambiguation).

Park Central Hotel
General information
TypeHotel
Architectural styleRenaissance revival
Location870 7th Avenue, Midtown Manhattan, New York City, New York, U.S.
Address860-882 7th Avenue, 201-211 West 55th Street, 200 West 56th Street
Coordinates40°45′53″N 73°58′52″W
Completed1926
OpenedJune 12, 1927
Height357 feet (109 m)
Technical details
Floor count25
Design and construction
Architect(s)Gronenberg & Leuchtag
References
[1]

Description

The Park Central Hotel is named because of its proximity to Central Park, though it does not have views of the park. It was designed in the Renaissance Revival style and has housed such figures as Jackie Gleason, Mae West, and Eleanor Roosevelt, who kept a suite there from 1950 to 1953. It occupies the east half of the city block between Seventh Avenue and Broadway. Anchoring the west half is 1740 Broadway, a 26-story, 375-foot (114 m) skyscraper formerly owned by Mutual of New York, with a weather beacon[3] as well as an imposing façade.[3]

The Mermaid Room was created as the hotel's cocktail bar and nightclub in the late 1940s. Irving Fields and his trio played there from 1950 to 1966.[4]

History

Park Central Hotel is located on the former site of the Van Corlear building, the first apartment hotel in New York City, designed by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh and built in 1879. The Van Corlear was demolished in 1921 to make way for the Park Central Hotel.[5]

7th Avenue side

The hotel was built by Harry A. Lanzer and opened on June 12, 1927. Lanzer sold the hotel to Sheraton in 1948 and it became the Park-Sheraton Hotel.[4] Sheraton renamed it The New York Sheraton Hotel in 1972,[4] not to be confused with the later Sheraton New York Hotel. In 1983, Sheraton sold the hotel for $60 million[6] to V.M.S. Realty, which contracted with Dunfey Hotels to manage the hotel through their Omni Hotels division, and the hotel was renamed the Omni Park Central in January 1984.[7] The hotel was sold to developer Ian Bruce Eichner in 1995[4] and left the Omni chain, reverting to its original name, Park Central Hotel. Eichner converted half the hotel's 1,450 rooms into the Manhattan Club, a 266-unit, all-suite timeshare development located at the north side of the hotel at 200 West 56th Street.

It is infamous as the site of the assassination of mobster Albert Anastasia, which took place on October 25, 1957, in the hotel's barber shop.[8] Earlier, in 1928, the Jewish gangster and well-dressed prototype of the modern don, Arnold Rothstein, was shot and fatally wounded inside one of the suites.[9] The silent-film actor Roscoe Arbuckle died in 1933 from a heart attack in his sleep in his suite in the hotel.[10]

The hotel was the venue for the National Football League Draft from 1980 to 1985. Today, the Park Central is an independent hotel managed by Highgate Holdings.[11] The facade was renovated in 2007.[3]

References
  1. "Park Central Hotel". Emporis. Archived from the original on March 12, 2016. Retrieved December 16, 2019.
  2. "870 Seventh Ave, New York, NY 10019".
  3. "No More MONY in the Midtown Skyline" by David W. Dunlap, City Room (The New York Times local news blog), February 4, 2008.]
  4. Park Central Hotel, New York City by Richard Johnson
  5. "Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, an Architect Who Left an Indelible Imprint". The New York Times. May 7, 2000.
  6. "New York Times Archive Stories of Statler". freepages.rootsweb.com.
  7. "New York Sheraton Sold". The New York Times. May 24, 1983.
  8. "Anastasia Slain in a Hotel Here; Led Murder, Inc." by Meyer Berger, The New York Times, pp. 1, 12, October 26, 1957 (Facsimile)
  9. "Rothstein Dies; Ex-convict Sought", The New York Times, pp. 27, 28, November 7, 1928 (Facsimile)
  10. "Fatty Arbuckle Dies in His Sleep", The New York Times, p. 17, June 30, 1933 (Facsimile)
  11. Susan Heller Anderson; Maurice Carroll (January 5, 1984). "New York Day by Day". The New York Times.

40°45′53″N 73°58′52″W

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