The 1912 Vanderbilt Hotel -- Park Avenue and 34th Street

The over-blown Adam-style fans can be seen among the extended sidewalk awnings.

Among New York City’s fabulously wealthy citizens, it was the Astor Family that was known for its hotel building.   Beginning with John Jacob Astor’s exclusive 1836 Astor Hotel on Broadway to the hulking Waldorf-Astoria and then to John Jacob Astor IV’s luxurious 1901 St. Regis Hotel and 1906 Knickerbocker Hotel, the Astor name was as synonymous with hotels as it was real estate.  But the Vanderbilts had a slice of the hotel pie, too.

In 1911, as architects Warren & Wetmore were completing one Vanderbilt project—the new Beaux Arts-style Grand Central Terminal that straddled Park Avenue at 42^nd Street—they were called upon to start another.    Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt envisioned an enormous upscale hotel conveniently located to the new terminal, just six blocks south on Park Avenue.  “Freddy” intended it to be done with true Vanderbilt class.

Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt would meet an untimely, but heroic, end.

Touted as fireproof, the building’s elegant façade would be clad in terra cotta fabricated by the New Jersey Terra Cotta Company.  Unlike the innumerable Beaux Arts structures appearing throughout the city with their lush garlands of fruits and flowers, and frothy embellishments, the Vanderbilt Hotel would be refined and classic, harkening back to 18^th century England.

photograph The American Architect, February 14, 1912 -- copyright expired

The Sun, on March 17, 1912, gushed with approval.  “Everything has been made to correspond with the Adam period of English design intended to be worked into the building.”  The architects treated the ground floor windows with over-blown Adam-style fluted fans.  Inside, painted panels and delicate plaster ceiling ornaments echoed the period.

But despite The Sun's assertions, Warren & Wetmore allowed themselves some play in the Adams style.  The brick facade was decorated with terra cotta lions' heads ad other not-so-Adams motifs.  And the extraordinary parapet was spiked with enormous 500-pound terra cotta sculptures wearing fruity garlands--some apparently depicting Bacchus, others less identifiable.  The liberty of style would cause the Works Progress Administration's 1939 "New York City Guide" to call it "an example of the eclectic use of Italian Renaissance, Mexican, and Adam influences." 

“The architects have not been content to make of the front the big façade which is usually found in large buildings,” said The Sun.  The general plan is excellent, involving in addition to two frontages two large open courts, preserving more the comfort of the guest by giving to each room an outside window.”

The "two large open courts" described by The Sun resulted in three nearly separate towers -- photo by Alice Lum

Nevertheless, the interior appointments on the whole kept to the theme.  The silverware, provided by Gorham, was designed in an 18^th century pattern as was the furniture.  Even the steel and iron fire doors, visible to guests, were treated in period.    The Sun said “they are not alone fireproof, they are presentable.  The casing is thoughtfully designed and singularly interesting in detail.  It is not merely a fireproof and smoke tight element of an interesting twentieth century building, but seen by the thoughtful must forever be a reminder of the culture of the eighteenth century when men of the type of Adam, Wedgwood, Chippendale and others ventured to present to an appreciative audience their conception of what the refinements of the classic period meant to them.”

The American Architect was as impressed with the craftsmanship as the design.  “It shows also a thorough understanding of up to date construction and of refinement of decoration.  It is so evidently the work of men who recognize and appreciate many of the things greater in a sense than architecture, while being neither callous nor indifferent to the tenets of the academic goddess, paying due allegiance to her ever changing moods.”

The hotel opened on January 10, 1912 and three days later its fireproof boasts would be put to the test.  On the fourth floor packing crates of excelsior stacked in a room suddenly ignited.   Although the fire “burned intensely,” according to The Sun, it “did practically no damage.”  The report of the New York Board of Fire Underwriters concluded that the confinement of “this intensely hot fire to a relatively small space” was due to the architects’ and engineers’ forward thinking designs.

Alfred Vanderbilt had the top two floors of the new hotel outfitted as a private home for his family.   The New-York Tribune noted that the Vanderbilt Suite was “the equivalent of a complete town house.”  He moved in with his wife, Margaret, their two sons and staff of servants.

The living room of the Vanderbilt family -- The New-York Tribune January 2, 1916 (copyright expired)

Below ground was a vaulted space known as the Della Robbia Room.   Tiled in Gustavino tiles laid in a herringbone pattern, it was decorated by Giovanni Battista Smeraldi.   Smeraldi made a name for himself painting the ceilings and walls of American hotels and civic buildings, changing his name to John B. Smeraldi.  Art critic Helen Henderson approved of the décor.   In her 1917 “A Loiterer in New York” she noted “The decoration of the Della Robbia Room of the Vanderbilt Hotel, done by Smeraldi, a clever Italian, in imitation of the famous Chambre des Singes, of the chateau of Chantilly, is an example of consistent and agreeable interior decoration, charmingly adapted to its destination."

The two-story Della Robbia Room featured Gustavino tiles -- The American Architect, February 14, 1912 (copyright expired)

The lobby, clad in Caen stone, was decorated with sculptured panels by Beatrice Chandler.

Things went well in the new hotel until May.  Then 150 of the hotel waiters, cooks and bus boys (known at the time as omnibuses) went on strike.  Among their demands were one day off every week, hours reduced to 10 hours a day, minimum wages of $10 a week for steady waiters and $7 a week for omnibuses, and “good and wholesome food” with a “daily change of menu.”

Waiters in the dining room (above) quickly went on strike in May 1912-- The American Architect, February 14, 1912 (copyright expired)

With labor problems put to bed, guests and full-time residents alike returned to their luxurious life within the halls of the Vanderbilt Hotel.   Even as World War I spread, cancer-like, across Europe, America went about its day-to-day life, seemingly unaffected.  But that would all change.

In April 1915 Alfred Vanderbilt planned a trip to London.  As a director of the International Horse Show Association, he was to attend a board meeting there in May.  He also intended to present a fleet of vehicles to the British Red Cross while he was there.   Margaret decided to stay home at the Vanderbilt Hotel for this trip and Alfred prepared to go alone, taking only his valet.

The night before his ship set sail, Alfred and Margaret attended the theater, seeing Frohman’s and Belasco’s coproduction of A Celebrated Case.  The following morning, on May 1, the Vanderbilts awoke to find a startling notice in the newspapers.  Framed in black a warning from the Imperial German Embassy reminded travelers that war existed between Germany and Great Britain and anyone sailing on a ship flying the English flag “do so at their own risk.”

The New-York Tribune May 1, 1915 -- (copyright expired)

Reportedly the couple laughed at the warning.  For one thing, Freddy Vanderbilt had a history of escaping maritime tragedy.  He had changed his mind one day before the RMS Titanic sailed, deciding on an alternative ship.  Vanderbilt and his valet confidently boarded the RMS Lusitania that morning.   They would never return.

Eyewitness on board reported that as the Lusitania sunk, having been torpedoed by a German U-boat, Alfred Vanderbilt removed his life jacket and personally strapped it on to a mother holding an infant.  Unable to swim, he realized his act of heroism would seal his own doom.  His body was never found.

A 1915 postcard shows the charming Mother Good Playroom, one of two rooms specifically designed for children.

Freddy's widow, Margaret Emerson Vanderbilt, an American divorcee and heir to the Bromo-Seltzer fortune, left the spectacular Vanderbilt Suite shortly thereafter.   Early in January 1916 it was leased to the newly-founded Women’s City Club.   The group was composed of women of vastly-varied backgrounds.

The New-York Tribune noted “A visit to the comfortable clubrooms discovers women of trades, professions, reform of uplift practices gathered into groups which discuss the disposal of high grade delinquents, baby week and the rapid removal of snow with quite as much freedom as the latest labor protocol or Brander Matthews’s definition of a ‘highbrow.”

In the meantime, downstairs the suites filled with the wealthy and the celebrated.  In the spring of that year Howard Hughes and his wife arrived, soon to be joined by Howard Hughes, Jr., known as “Sonny.”  Sonny was deemed by Hughes’s friends as “too over-refined, nervous, and sissified,” according to biographer Charles Higham.

He had barely arrived when he suffered an attack of infantile paralysis while having an argument with his parents.    The suite was transformed into a sort of hospital room staffed with 24-hour doctors and nurses.  As it turned out, his sudden attack was merely his spoiled machination to obtain sympathy.

In 1920, the same year that Admiral Lewis Bayly of the Royal Navy was given a suite of rooms during his New York visit, opera star Enrico Caruso and his family moved into the former Vanderbilt Suite (the Woman’s City Club had taken over a brownstone house nearby).    The New York Times quietly remarked on August 11 that “Enrico Caruso has taken the apartment at the Hotel Vanderbilt which was specially built and decorated for the late Alfred G. Vanderbilt.”

The tenor filled the immense apartment with his artwork and the mementos of his illustrious career.  He was in declining health, however, and in the spring of 1921 he left the Vanderbilt for Italy.   Before departing, he ordered his secretary, Bruno Zirato, to crate up everything and have it shipped to Italy.  “Who knows, Bruno?  I may never get back to New York,” he said..

“Until shortly before he left,” reported The New-York Tribune, “Mr. Caruso retained his cherished art objects here in his suite.”  But, in an apparent precognitive act, “he ordered it all packed into a score of large trunks and packing cases.  Everything went, even to the magnificent collection of gifts of all sorts which were lavished on hi on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his connection with the Metropolitan Opera Company.”

On August 21, 1921 the tenor died in Naples.   On the day of his funeral, Enrico Caruso, Jr. passed the day in the Vanderbilt suite with Bruno Zirata.

Howard “Sonny” Hughes, Jr. would come back to the hotel where he caused the earlier uproar.  During his honeymoon in 1925 he stayed here with his new wife, Ella.  He had had a pair of Rolls-Royce Silver Clouds, one for each of them, shipped to New York and waiting for them.   Little had changed in Sonny and before the honeymoon was over he had tired of married life, preferring to spend his time in nightclubs with his friends.

When journalist-humorist Ring Lardner’s East Hampton house was severely damaged by a storm in 1931, he and his wife Ellis Abbott took up residency at the Vanderbilt.   On February 13, he began a letter saying “My health hasn’t been so good.  I guess I am paying for my past.”   In fact the writer was suffering from tuberculosis and a heart ailment which would lead to his death in 1933.

As the 20^th century moved on, the hold hotel declined.  It suffered foreclosure in 1935 during the Great Depression.  Although the New York World’s Fair of 1964 brought a much-needed boast it was not enough.  The New York Times reported on June 26, 1966 “Resurrected, it survived in faded elegance until the decline of the hotel business following the closing of the World’s Fair last fall.”

Patrons enjoy a drink in The Purple Tree Room in the 1960s.

An investment group purchased the 54-year old structure with intentions of renovating it into a dual function office and apartment building.    The top 18 floors would become studio and one-bedroom apartments while the lower floors would be offices and commercial space.  Warren & Wetmore’s Adam-style exteriors on the lower floors were about to go.

“New aluminum-and-glass curtain walls are being erected to sheath the office floors, while the masonry façade of the hotel will be retained on the upper stories,” said the article.   But that was just the beginning of the brutality.

The elegant Adam-style lower floors were replaced with featureless glass and metal -- photo by Alice Lum

Penthouse apartments were being constructed on the roof but the view was obstructed by the terra cotta parapet and its massive sculptures.   In June 1966 eighteen of the heads were removed, resulting in a gash in the roofline.   “The heavy pieces were removed over a period of several days by a 10-man crew of the Drachman Demolition Company,” said The Times, “which used jack hammers to cut them off the parapet.”

To create a view from the newly-built penthouse, the parapet and sculptures of the center section were scrapped -- photo by Alice Lum

When the new apartments were available for occupancy in 1967, among the first residents were Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wilson.  The Wilsons had held their wedding reception in the Vanderbilt on July 4, 1953.

Despite the vandalism of the lower levels and the partial decapitation of the parapet, Alfred Vanderbilt’s classy experiment in the hotel business still looms majestically over Park Avenue.

The Lost Jennings-McCullough Mansions -- 86-88 Park Ave

photograph Palatial Homes in the City of New York and the Dwellers Therein, 1910 (copyright expired)

Laura Hall Park and her sister, Eliza Hall Park, enjoyed a privileged upbringing in Bennington, Vermont.  Their grandfather, Hiland Hall, had been state governor and their father, Trenor W. Park, had made a fortune in railroads and banking.  The girls’ close relationship would eventually be manifested in the form of a magnificent mansion miles away in New York City.

In 1871 Eliza married John Griffith McCullough.  Born near Newark, Delaware, he had been orphaned at the age of eight; but managed to obtain a “common school” education, graduated from Delaware College at the head of his class and studied law in Philadelphia.  By the time McCullough met Eliza, he had served as California’s Attorney General and State Senator.  Like Trenor Park, he gave up law to go into the banking and railroad businesses.

John Beach McCullough -- The Interstate Journal & Adviser, May 1900 (copyright expired)

Nine years later, on July 27, 1880, Vermont-born Frederic Beach Jennings was back home to marry Laura.  The wedding took place in the Park mansion.  The New York Times mentioned that the impressive guest list included the U. S. Secretary of State, William M. Evarts, and “a number of New-York families who are Summering among the Green Mountains.”  Following the ceremony, a special train was waiting to take the newlyweds on their honeymoon in Canada.

By now McCullough was spending more and more time in New York City, where Jennings’s law practice was based.  Neither Laura nor Eliza would have have to give up Vermont totally.  They both maintained magnificent summer estates there.  But throughout the fall and winter seasons, the sisters would take on the roles of Manhattan socialites. 

In 1890 the McCulloughs and the Jennings spawned a plan to make their wives' daily interactions simpler.  A few years earlier William Vanderbilt had constructed three mansions—one for himself and his wife Louisa, and one each for his daughters Margaret and Emily—which successfully pretended to be one massive home.  John Jacob Astor would do the same, erecting a huge chateau on upper Fifth Avenue which was in realty two mansions—one for himself and one for his mother, Caroline Schermerhorn Astor.  But before Astor’s plans would take shape, ground would be broken for the Jennings-McCullough residences.

Land was purchased on the northwest corner of Park Avenue and 39^th Street.  Architect J. Lawrence Aspinwall was commissioned to design an imposing double residence for the two families; one that would suggest a single palatial dwelling.  He designed an immense chateau in a toned-down version of the French Renaissance style.  The angles, oriels and bays required that Jennings submit a request to the Department of Parks in 1891 “to erect projections on his proposed house at the north-west corner of Park avenue and Thirty-ninth street.  Apparently the request was approved, for the 39^th Street entrance crept beyond the property line.

The Engineering Record published a sketch of the mansions in November 1893 (copyright expired)

Laura and Frederic would take the southern half, at No. 86 Park Avenue (although the entrance was clearly on 39^th Street) and the McCulloughs would move in to No. 88, with its sweeping entrance staircase.  What the Jennings lost in a Park Avenue entrance, they gained in additional light into the rooms.

The mansions were completed just in time for Elizabeth McCullough’s coming-out and the paint was barely dry before the sisters began entertaining.  On January 4, 1893 Eliza hosted a tea for Elizabeth from 4:00 to 7:00 in No. 88; and on January 20, 1893 Laura gave a debutante dinner for her in No. 86.  Socially important young men and women with names like Rockefeller, Lambert, and Brewster chatted in the dining room that evening.

On April 26 that year Laura gave what The New York Timescalled “a large dinner party.”  The word “large” by society columnists in describing dinners in 1893 was not tossed about lightly.  The newspaper added “The table was handsomely decorated by Thorley with Elric [sic] Brunner roses.”

The immense size of the mansions was evidenced on March 30, 1895 when Eliza McCullough hosted a charity “international tea” to benefit the Daisy Fields Hospital and Home for Crippled Children in Englewood, New Jersey.  Booths were set up representing America, France, Africa, Holland, Spain, Ireland and Germany, from which “pretty girls in costumes sold articles peculiar to each country,” reported The Timesthe following day.

“In the café chantant there was a continuous performance during the afternoon and evening.  In the booth were waitresses dressed as French shepherdesses, ready to serve the hungry and little cripples from the Daisy Fields Home sold flowers.”

Eliza seems to have been more interested in entertaining than her sister; repeatedly appearing in society columns as the hostess of receptions, dinners and teas.  On February 21, 1897 The Times noted “Besides her tea on Thursday, Mrs. J. G. McCullough of 88 Park Avenue gave dinners on Wednesday and Friday of last week to parties of twenty each.  Her last reception will be held on next Thursday.”

Perhaps the reason that Eliza’s “last reception” was so early in the season that year was because of John’s increasing political aspirations.  Within the year he would be elected to the Vermont State Senate and by 1900 was eying the Governor’s mansion.  But despite John’s increasing focus on Vermont, on March 29, 1901, when Hall Park McCullough’s engagement was announced, the Yale graduate’s address was still listed as No. 88 Park Avenue.  The young man whose father had started out as a penniless orphan was a member of the University, Union League and Metropolitan Clubs.

It was not just Laura and Eliza who had a close relationship.  Frederic and John worked closely together as well.  Such was the case in 1901 when they returned to the firm of Renwick, Aspinwall & Owan to design their 12-story hotel at Nos. 12-14 West 44^th Street.  (Frederic Jennings would commission the firm once again in 1904; this time to design a new country house in North Bennington, Vermont.)

By now John McCullough had served his two years as Governor of Vermont and returned to New York.  He held the positions of either president or director in the First National Bank of North Bennington, the Bank of New York, the Fidelity & Casualty Co., no fewer than three railroads and the Lackawanna Steel Company.

In 1906 it was the Jennings’s daughter, also named Elizabeth, who was feted with debutante entertainments; followed by her cousin, Esther Morgan McCullough, two years later.

The Interstate Journal & Adviser, May 1900 (copyright expired)

A near-tragedy came in 1913 when Frederic B. Jennings, Jr. was traveling on the Boston Express near Stamford, Connecticut.  At 5:03 on the afternoon of June 12 the train smashed into another that was stopped waiting to be coupled to an electric locomotive.  Five passengers were killed instantly and dozens were severely injured.  Among them was young Frederic.  A Stanford reporter listed his injuries as “probably fatal.”  Much to the relief of both families, Frederic survived.

On May 29, 1915 John G. McCullough died.  His children received generous if unequal inheritances; $100,000 went to Ella, Esther inherited $150,000, Hall Park McCullough received the North Bennington home and $75,000, and his sister, Mrs. Thornton F. Turner, received “a similar amount.”  Eliza received the bulk of the immense estate, including the Park Avenue mansion.

Eliza stayed in the house next door to her sister.  By now the Jennings boys were growing up and entering the world.  Frederic Jr. had graduated from Yale in 1914 and on August 16, 1919 his engagement to Elizabeth Holt was announced.

A few months later Frederic’s father fell ill.  After just a brief illness Frederic Beach Jennings died in the Park Avenue mansion on May 26, 1920.  Similarly to his brother-in-law, in addition to his legal practice he had been director of many corporations, and was vice-president of the First National Bank of North Bennington and a trustee of Williams and Barnard colleges, the Provident Loan Society and the New York Trust Company.

Somewhat surprisingly, just four months after her husband’s death and during what should have been her deepest period of mourning; Laura announced the engagement of son Edward to Margaret Huntington Trumbull. 

With their children gone, the widowed sisters decided to abandon their hulking mansions.  On April 2, 1921 The New York Times reported that the Princeton Club was in negotiations with the two women for the structures.  Within two weeks a deal had been struck.

On April 23 it was announced that the club had purchased both mansions, as well as the brownstone house directly behind on39th Street, also owned by the sisters.  “It was proposed that the two houses on the corner be utilized as the main clubhouse, with as few alterations as possible, and the brownstone dwelling in the rear be torn down and a fireproof building erected, connecting with the main clubhouse” reported The Times.

It was projected that the new annex would contain “billiard rooms, dressing rooms, shower baths, four squash courts, a gymnasium and four or five floors of additional bedrooms, so that the club would have available about seventy bedrooms.”

By August renovations were well under way and the club had purchased, in addition, the Cleveland H. Dodge house next door at No. 90 Park Avenue.  Architect Aymar Embury II was commissioned to remodel Nos. 86 and 88.  “There will be little change in the exterior, for the houses are well built, of attractive architecture and command attention among the best homes in that section,” reported The Times on August 21.

Plans were announced for the 10-story annex at No. 39 East 39^th Street in May 1922, which would cost the club $150,000.  The alterations to the Jennings and McCullough mansions were expected to cost $40,000—in the neighborhood of $525,000 today.  Once completed, the two houses would be joined internally and include a café and library in the basement; dining room, card room and another library on the first floor; and bedrooms on the upper floors.

Only three years later, on May 26, 1925, The New York Timesnoted the drastic changes taking place in the once residential neighborhood.  “Park Avenue north of Fortieth Street is occupied almost entirely by office and loft buildings and other commercial structures, many of which exceed fifteen stories in height.”  But despite the demolition of the elegant mansions that lined Park Avenue throughout the ensuing decades, the Princeton Club hung on for nearly 40 more years.

The end of J. Lawrence Aspinwall’s magnificent double mansion finally came in 1963 when it was demolished to make way for the 41-story building known as 90 Park Avenue.

photograph by the author

The Lost Hotel Belmont -- 120 Park Avenue

At the turn of the last century, a rather handsome two-story building stood at the southwest corner of Park Avenue and 42^ndStreet.   It housed Peter Tivnan’s restaurant and the Hetherington drugstore (and before that, Schoonmaker’s Drugstore).  As excavation for the coming Fourth Avenue subway commenced in 1902, the Victorian structure was razed.

One block to the south stood the massive Murray Hill Hotelwhich opened in 1884.  Before long the aging hostelry would have competition in the 23-story Hotel Belmont.  

The drugstore and restaurant were razed for construction of the subway -- The Sun, September 29, 1918 (copyright expired) 

Because of the sharp turn its route had to make at 42^ndStreet, the subway necessarily had to go under the now-vacant plot.  The Subway Realty Company (most of the stock of which was owned by the Interborough Rapid Transit) purchased the land, which it rented to the Hotel Belmont Company at $125,000 per year.  The complex set of negotiations was eased by the fact that millionaire August Belmont, Jr. had founded the Interborough and, not surprisingly, was highly involved in the Hotel Belmont Company.

In order to construct a substantial structure above the subway, massive columns had to be installed that reached five stories below street level.  On January 24, 1904 the New-York Tribune reported “These pillars, three times the size of any of the others [in the subway project], are of solid steel, incased in brick, and they support the new Hotel Belmont, now building.  Practically the entire weight of this huge structure rests on these pillars, supported on the subway roof, intervening between them and its foundations.”

As the subway and the hotel were constructed, August Belmont left his mark in the design of both in the form of a siding for his private subway car.  The “Mineola” would cost more than $11,000 to construct and was fitted out like the luxurious private train cars millionaires used above ground.

On September 25, 1904 as the hotel began taking form, the New-York Tribune noted “The ground area of the Hotel Belmont contains 22,000 square feet and its cost is estimated at $5,000,000, or $240 a square foot.”  The great expense would be understandable when its doors opened for business in 1906.

In December of that year, The Architectural Record said “To this monster hotel one might aptly apply the expression for large New York enterprises:  A city in itself.  On entering it the spectator experiences a sensation as in a large department store:  Where shall we go first?”

It was most likely no coincidence that Belmont chose for his architects Warren & Wetmore, who simultaneously worked on the magnificent new Grand Central Terminal across 42^nd Street.   Despite the building’s grandeur and size, The Architectural Record was less than impressed with the exterior.  It called the cornice “ponderous” and “rather loud.” 

Turning to the lower floors the critic described “In it the two great entrance features, one on Park avenue, the other on Forty-second street, with their marquises in glass and wrought-iron, form the eyes, the centres of interest.  In the Park avenue elevation the stone pedimented windows are given such importance that they appear to fight the ironwork for supremacy and this antagonism of the windows and entrance is further emphasized by the negative way in which the intermediate long windows of the first and second stories are treated.”

Architecture critic H. W. Frohue found the cornice "rather loud."

Writing for the periodical, H. W. Frohue was as unforgiving regarding the interiors.  “The decorative treatment of the ceiling and wall surfaces calls for less enthusiastic praise.”  Regarding the lobby decorations, it said “Supporting the beams and on each side of the piers which look quite able to support their loads, there have been placed ponderous Atlas-like figures executed in white staff.  Aesthetically one can find no excuse for them, nor do they give any particular character to the room.”

Frohue disliked the ponderous Atlas-like figures in the lobby -- Architectural Record December 1906 (copyright expired)

The red marble entrance hall, said Frohue, “is rather cold and uninviting…The brilliant chandelier of cut glass in the centre forms the most attractive spot of decoration in a rather expressionless interior.”  The critic summed up the public spaces by saying it left an “impression of vastness.”

 

The Palm Garden featured exquisite crystal chandeliers, marble columns and a frescoed ceiling -- from the collection of the New York Public Library

Despite H. W. Frohue’s tepid opinion, the hotel saw the comings and goings of wealthy travelers.   Among them was Mrs. Eva Briel Werner who arrived on Tuesday January 14, 1908.  The wife of Frederick A. Werner whom The World termed “a millionaire business man of New York and London,” she was 35 years old and, according to the newspaper, was “prominent in social life on both sides of the water, wealthy in her own right.”

In 1901 the Werners had lost two children.  “Since she has been inconsolable,” said The World. “Her ailment has been chronic.  She was given all the freedom in the world by her husband because he believed that travel and excitement would aid her.”

In March 1907 the pair was in London; but Eva traveled to New York as a guest of Mrs. Henry Wellington Wack of Riverside Drive.  Mrs. Wack’s husband was counsel to King Leopold of Belgium.  Now, nearly a year later, Eva Werner checked into the Belmont, locked herself in her rooms and began writing heartfelt letters to friends and family.  “In them she spoke of death, saying she had to die.”

Eva placed her jewelry—valued at $16,000—in a suitcase and left a diary in her room.  One entry read “I am not worthy of the love and kindness of my husband and all of my friends, and I must die.”

She walked out of the Belmont that evening and when she had not returned by Thursday, police started a search of hotels, hospitals and sanitariums.  Weeks later the mystery of her disappearance appeared to have been solved when relatives in Boston sent word to police “to no longer continue a search for Mrs. Werner, as she was found alive and well,” reported The World.

It is possible that the wealthy Boston family simply wanted to put a stop to the uncomfortable publicity.  What is certain, however, is that Eva Werner was by no means alive nor well. 

Eva Werner -- The Evening World, January 17, 1908 (copyright expired)

Five months after her disappearance, the body of Eva Werner was found in the East River by Pier 14.  When the badly decomposed body was brought to the morgue only remnants of a brown dress remained; but the label “Slattery & Co., Boston” was still legible.  It was enough for Eva’s brother to identify her.

The Hotel Belmont rises high above the Murray Hill hotel in 1908.  Park Avenue still boasts lavish mansions.

On July 8 that year 20-year old Nathan Schultz checked into the Hotel Belmont.   His arrival coincided with a rash of spectacular burglaries of the finest hotels in New York—including the Waldorf-Astoria, the Grand, and the Plaza.   The New-York Tribune said the thief had “led the police a merry chase for the last few weeks.”

In the suite on the 14^th floor next to Schultz were Mostyn Cookson and his wife who were visiting from England. What the Cooksons did not know was that the man in the suite next door was New York’s most sought-after crook, Nathan Levine.  And what Levine did not know was that Cookson was a Major in the English Army.

Around 2:30 on the morning of July 9 the daring robber climbed out his window and along the three-inch wide stone coping 200 feet above the sidewalk and into the Cookson rooms.   After pocketing $2,000 of Mrs. Cookson’s jewelry, he was discovered by the woman.  He tied her up and threatened to kill her.

“She screamed and aroused her husband, who disregarded Levine’s threats and beat him thoroughly after knocking a revolver from his hand,” reported the New-York Tribune on July 10.  “Major Cookson covered the burglar with the captured revolver until the hotel employes and the police arrived.”

In Levine’s rooms the police found two revolvers, two “dark lanterns,” a dagger, several bottles of knock-out drops, and a box of red pepper.  As the Major and Mrs. Cookson sailed home on the steamship Baltic on the afternoon of July 9, Nathan Levine was being transported to Sing Sing prison to serve a sentence of 10 to 40 years.

Postcards pictured the Dining Room and the immense lobby fireplace.

A bizarre incident occurred the following year when Father Joseph Hirling was hurrying to Grand Central Terminal on April 13, 1909.  Mistaking the Hotel for an annex of the train station, he entered.  He walked to an elevator but it was too crowded, so he walked into the open door of another one.  The elevator was not there.

The priest plunged 60 feet down the shaft where he was found unconscious by hotel staff.  “For a long time his name and how he met his injuries were unknown, but late last night he recovered consciousness and explained,” reported the New-York Tribune the following day.   Despite suffering a broken right leg and several bruises, the unfocused priest recovered.

The Hotel Belmont, like all hotels, saw repeated suicides or attempted suicides through the years.  One of the most disturbing was that of 28-year old Jergen E. Muhlensteth.   The man had been butler to Dr. E. D. Kelsey in his home at No. 44 East 29^th Street until June 1909 when he resigned “saying that he wished for a better position.”

He volunteered to join the U.S. Army but a month later, following a physical examination, received a rejection letter.  The rejection apparently ate away at the dejected man and six months later he checked into the Hotel Belmont.  Later the Army’s rejection letter was found, torn into many pieces in his room.

Muhlensteth threw himself from his 11^th floor window that faced the interior air shaft.  His body crashed through the glass ceiling of the lobby and smashed to the floor among terrified guests.  The coroner arrived within ten minutes, and determined that he had been killed instantly with a fractured skull.

The hotel’s proximity to the train terminal made it a favorite for meetings of groups with far-flung attendees.  Such was the case when Senator Franklin D. Roosevelt called a meeting “to discuss the coming Presidential campaign and the question of the leadership and principles of the Democratic party in the State of New York,” said The Sun on July 14, 1912. 

Roosevelt said in a letter to independent Democrats, “It was the unanimous sentiment that the present methods of leadership in this State are utterly destructive of future party unity and success; that unless the present stupidity, arrogance and selfishness give way to an intelligent regeneration of the Democracy a State ticket capable of being elected will not be nominated and the success of Wilson and Marshall will be placed in jeopardy.”

As is the case today, upscale hotels in the first decades of the last century not only saw society functions, suicides and political events; they were the scenes of scandalous trysts.   In 1913 the suave Frenchman Jean Millon was chief chef at the Ritz-Carlton.   His highly-paid position afforded him the ability to mingle in his off hours among Manhattan’s socially elite.  Such was the case on March 10 that year when he dined at the exclusive Maxim’s restaurant.

Charles Lehman’s wife was there that night and introduced Millon to wealthy friends, Ernest Eidlitz and his wife.   The couple had been married in 1907 and, it appears that the spark that had died in their relationship reignited between the chef and Mrs. Eidlitz.

A few days later a basket of fruits and candies arrived at the Millon residence, a gift to the married woman from Millon.  When she hosted her own birthday party on March 22, Millon was “one of the honored guests,” according to The Evening World.  The attraction grew.  On April 10 Ernest Eidlitz waited until 3:30 in the morning for his wife to return home.

Things escalated when Marion Sterner was in the Hotel Belmont on May 23, a little more than two months after Millon had met Eidlitz’s wife.  She later testified that she “saw Millon and Mrs. Eidlitz at the Hotel Belmont drinking wine and later they registered as ‘J. Beanaux and wife’ and went to room 51.”

Eidlitz put two private detectives on his wife’s trail.  It all came to a dramatic conclusion when the lovebirds were followed into the Hotel Belmont on the afternoon of May 27.  After once again drinking wine downstairs, they registered as “Michaud and wife” and went to a suite of rooms.

Their romantic afternoon was soon shattered when Eidlitz’s lawyer and the two private investigators banged on the door after waiting a short period.  The Evening World reported on July 23 “finally the door was opened by Millon, wearing little clothing.  They went into the bedroom…and found Mrs. Eidlitz in bed.”

Devastated by the humiliating and scandalous press, Eidlitz’s wife fled to Paris rather than appear in court.   Eidlitz sued his wife for divorce on June 2, then sued the French chef for $50,000 (a substantial $1.15 million today) for alienating his wife’s affections.

Staff at the Hotel Belmont were apparently well taken care of.  At the time of Mrs. Eidlitz’s shocking affair the nation was swept with labor upheaval and worker strikes.   Earlier that year, in January, Manhattan’s most exclusive hotels were pummeled by waiter strikes led by the Industrial Workers of the World.

Representatives of the group told reporters that they “would send their well dressed strikers into the hotels, accompanied by equally well gowned women—their wives or daughters.  They figured they would not attract attention and cause disorder by such a method.”  Once inside, they would incite the waiters and kitchen help to walk off the job, leaving wealthy patrons at unattended tables.

On January 11, 1913 Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (described by the New-York Tribune as “a slim and pretty young woman, with tired eyes) went to the door of the Hotel Belmont with “two gaily clothed strikers.”  The Tribune said that she “there bade them come out only when they had called a strike among all the waiters and kitchen help there.”

She waited.  And waited.  And finally went back to strike headquarters alone.  Later she found out that not only had the Hotel Belmont staff not participated in the strike; her two associates had been arrested.  “The two men walked into the Palm room of the hotel and then started to call about them the waiters in the room.  They told the waiters who they were and asked that they all ‘get together’ and call a general strike.”   Instead they called police.

Two decades after its doors were opened, they were closed.  On May 3, 1930 it “passed into the ranks of the immortals among the famous hostelries of Manhattan,” said The New York Times the following day.  “The hotel, for twenty-three years a landmark of the Grand Central zone, ended its career quietly and without ceremony.”

The wealthy full-time residents had been told of the closing just a week earlier.  At noon on the last day, they gathered in the main dining room for the last meal served in the grand space.  “It was a solemn luncheon, prepared by Pierre Camin, chef, and served under the direction of Joseph Parkes, the maitre de hotel.”

Within weeks the furniture, chandeliers, carpets, fireplaces and other decorative and utilitarian items of the hotel were sold at auction.   Among the items was “the historic, rather quaint bar,” as described by The New York Times on June 19, 1930.

After 23 years the grand hotel was slated for demolition  Architectural Record December 1906 (copyright expired)

In the days of Art Deco skyscrapers and streamlined, jazz age décor, Edwardian decoration was ill-regarded.  The heavy bar brought a bid of $2.  To up the price, auctioneer James P. Silo placed a “gin bottle, a seltzer bottle and two drinking glasses” on the bar.  The Times said “They stood in full view, where thousands of other bottles and glasses had stood—not so very long ago.”

The move brought a second bid--$27.   Silo brought down the hammer and Irving Finn of the Bronx had purchased the striking relic.  “Mr. Finn said he would present the bar to a friend who owns a home in the country,” said the newspaper.

Rumors were rampant regarding the site.  On August 30, 1930 it was reported that the city’s tallest office building would replace the hotel.  But demolition did not begin until April 1931.  Newspapers repeatedly spoke of the proposed 60-story office building, until July 1931 when The Times ran a headline “Abandon Plan for Skyscraper on Site of Hotel Belmont.”

The hotel would sit vacant and silent for three more years.   The building that replaced it survived until the 1982 Philip Morris Building took its place, designed by Ulrich Franzen & Associates.

photo Wikimapia.org by John 832

many thanks to reader P. Alsen for suggesting this post