Hotel St. George
It is located atop the New York City Subway's Clark Street station, whose sole entrance is through the hotel's ground story.
The hotel, originally operated by Union Navy captain William Tumbridge, was designed by Augustus Hatfield as a 10-story structure and was expanded over the years.
[2] Prior to the 1995 fire that gutted the Hotel St. George, the building complex consisted of eight attached structures, surrounding a courtyard.
[3][4] These consisted of the Clark, Grill, Tower, Crosshall, Pineapple, Weller, and Marquee buildings, as well as the hotel itself at the eastern end of the block.
[17] The natatorium was designed by Willy Pogany[6][7] and contained underwater lights; walls with gold mirrors; columns with gold-and-green tiles; and a balcony with white-on-black reliefs.
This portion of the hotel was built above a storefront whose owners still held a lease on the site, as well as the entrance to the Clark Street subway station; as a result, the easternmost wing was built with large girders, carrying it above the New York City Subway's Clark Street station and a store.
[28] The hotel was ornate for its time; there were bowling alleys and Turkish baths, as well as an air-cooling system and dedicated electrical generators.
[34] Three elevators, leading to the Interborough Rapid Transit Company's Clark Street station just beneath the hotel, were installed at the St. George's ground story in 1919.
[8][51] The New York Times wrote in 2009 that, at the hotel's peak, "the St. George was a beacon that attracted some of the brightest lights in American society".
[53][54] The St. George was so well known that Eli Danzig, who led the hotel's band, was invited to perform at a ball celebrating Roosevelt's first inauguration in 1933.
[55] The author Truman Capote frequented the St. George's swimming pool,[52] as did swimmers such as Buster Crabbe, Eleanor Holm, and Johnny Weissmuller.
[49] The hotel's Egyptian Rooftop Club was also popular with actors such as Katharine Hepburn, Frank Sinatra, and Spencer Tracy.
[57][58] A committee led by Alvin J. Schlosser asked the New York Supreme Court in March 1934 for permission to reorganize the Clark-Henry Corporation, which operated the hotel.
Members of the Armed Forces began to move away from Brooklyn in the early 1950s, and these installations gradually closed, causing demand for the St. George's hotel rooms to decline.
[70][71] In addition, Kestenberg planned to add a health club next to the swimming pool, and he wished to renovate the facade to complement the design of nearby civic buildings in Downtown Brooklyn.
[78][79] Vantar subsequently went bankrupt, and it sold the building in July 1965 to a Hong Kong investment group led by T. F. Mok for $3.85 million.
[82][83] The hotel's new owners announced plans to spend $3 million on renovations, fixing issues such as leaky pipes and peeling paint.
[87] By then, only about one-third of its 2,000 rooms were occupied, some sections or whole floors were unused and in poor repair, and the hotel employed only 40 full-time staff.
[91] At the time, the project entailed converting the Tower Building to 272 apartments,[90][91] as well as adding 14 "professional offices", constructing a health club, and renovating the hotel's subway entrance.
[21][29] Homeless people trespassed into abandoned portions of the St. George,[21] and the ground floor contained a topless club, Wild Fyre.
[97] The Drizin family acquired the remaining portion of the hotel in 1986 and attempted to renovate it, but they abandoned their plans because of a moratorium on single-room occupancy conversions and declining demand for real estate in the city.
[97] In 1990, the Drizin family agreed to lease some rooms to the New York City government for the elderly, Russian emigres, Red Cross disaster victims, and homeless people with HIV/AIDS.
As part of an agreement with local community groups, the New York City Human Resources Administration (HRA) promised to house up to 65 people with HIV/AIDS at the hotel.
[99] The city proposed opening a 600-seat school in two of the vacant hotel buildings in 1994, but these plans were postponed due to opposition from local residents.
[102] The remaining portion of the hotel on Henry Street survived serious destruction and reopened the day after the fire, but the Clark Building had to be demolished.
[111][112] Two months after the fire, city finance commissioner Joe Lhota indicated that the Drizins' portion of the complex could be sold to pay $764,000 in back taxes.
[114] Educational Housing Services (EHS) began negotiating with the Drizins in May 1996 to lease most of the remaining hotel rooms, which were either vacant or occupied by elderly residents.
[114][115] EHS agreed the next month to lease 325 rooms as student dormitories, and the Drizins immediately began renovating the hotel.
Because the site was part of the Brooklyn Heights Historic District, the new building was designed in a neo-Renaissance style, complementing the rest of the block.
[123] As construction progressed, residents of the St. George Tower and Grill co-op expressed concerns that the project was damaging their portion of the building.
