Gilsey House Hotel | |
New York City Landmark
No. 1039
| |
| |
Location | 1200 Broadway, Manhattan, New York City |
---|---|
Coordinates | 40°44′46″N 73°59′18″W / 40.74611°N 73.98833°W |
Built | 1869-1871 |
Architect | Stephen Decatur Hatch |
Architectural style | Second Empire |
NRHP reference No. | 78001872 |
NYCL No. | 1039 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | December 14, 1978 |
Designated NYCL | September 11, 1979 |
Gilsey House is a former eight-story 300-room hotel [1] located at 1200 Broadway at West 29th Street in the NoMad neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It is a New York City landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places.
Gilsey House was designed by Stephen Decatur Hatch for Peter Gilsey, a Danish immigrant merchant and city alderman [2] who leased [2] the plot – which included the grounds of the St. George Cricket Club – from Caspar Samlar for $10,000 a year. [2] [3] [4] [1] It was constructed from 1869 to 1871 at the cost of $350,000, [1] opening as the Gilsey House Hotel in 1872. [4] [5] The cast-iron for the facade of the Second Empire style building was fabricated by Daniel D. Badger, [3] [1] a significant and influential advocate for cast-iron architecture at the time; [2] the extent to which Badger contributed to the design of the facade is unknown. [1]
The hotel was luxurious – the rooms featured rosewood and walnut finishing, marble fireplace mantles, bronze chandeliers [4] and tapestries [1] – and offered services to its guests such as telephones, the first hotel in New York to do so. [3] It was a favorite of Diamond Jim Brady, Aimee Crocker and Oscar Wilde, Samuel Clemens was a guest, [6] [4] [7] [8] and it attracted the theatrical trade [3] at a time when the area – which became known as the " Tenderloin" – was becoming the primary entertainment and amusement district for New York's growing population, [9] with numerous theatres, gambling clubs and brothels. [2]
Gilsey House closed in 1911 after legal conflict beginning in 1904 between the operator of the hotel, Seaboard Hotel Company, and the Gilsey estate over the terms of the lease. [10] Parts of the facade, such as cast-iron columns, which went over the property line were removed, and the building deteriorated, with rust, water damage and sagging floors. [4] In 1925, plans were filed to rebuild the structure as an ordinary loft building of brick and stone, but were never carried out, [1] although the ground-level storefronts were modernized in 1946. [2] The building's future was decided when it was purchased in 1980 by Richard Berry and F. Anthony Zunino and converted into co-operative apartments [4] after a cosmetic cleanup of the exterior, which won a commendation from the Friends of Cast Iron Architecture. [1] The facade was finally almost fully restored in 1992 by Building Conservation Associates. [9]
The building, with its "extraordinary" three-story mansard roof [9] and its "vigor that only the waning years of the 19th century could muster" [5] was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. It was designated a New York City landmark in 1979. [9]
Media related to Gilsey House at Wikimedia Commons