St. Nicholas Hotel (New York City)

The main central plan and design of the white marble-façade hotel was prepared by the owner D. H. Haight and a well-known hotelier, Mr. Treadwell.

[9] An elaborate men's hair-cutting salon illustrated by a gilded domed skylight catered to about a dozen guests at a time.

On the wall above this landing was a painting of the Dutch mythical gift-giving figure Sinterklaas (aka St. Nicholas) placing presents into Christmas stockings.

The hotel had window curtains that cost $700 apiece and gold embroidered draperies at $1,000 per pair.

[10] On the second floor an ornately carved "exquisite rosewood Aeolion piano" produced by Boston's T. Gilbert & Co. featured mother of pearl keys, rather than the then-customary ivory.

The hotel's "ingenious call system" connected guest rooms to the main office; bells could be remotely rung using electrical current.

The St. Nicholas was one of more than a dozen of the finest New York hotels that were infested by them with a purpose to set them afire.

[13] The fires largely self-extinguished due to a lack of oxygen; they were set in locked rooms, the technology was not well-developed, and the terrorists were intent on making their own escape.

[6][13][14] By the later part of the nineteenth century, the hotel had declined in popularity, most New York City tourists preferring to stay farther uptown.

[15] The opulent exterior was the subject of an 1855 lithograph by artist Frederick Heppenheimer, which is now part of the collection of the Museum of the City of New York, being artifact No. 39.253.6.