at 673 Broadway
, New York City
, that collapsed on August 3, 1973, killing four residents and injuring at least twelve.
History
This hotel, which opened in 1870, was designed by Henry Engelbert, and was commissioned by Elias S. Higgins, a local carpet manufacturer. The hotel's facade was reminiscent of Engelbert's Grand Hotel on Broadway and West 31st Street, which was also commissioned by Higgins. Both of these hotels by Engelbert were characterized by elaborate mansards with dormers in the French Second Empire style, although the Grand Central Hotel was clearly the larger and more elaborate of the two.
THE LARGEST HOTEL IN AMERICAFew people who pass through Broadway are aware that on that bustling thoroughfare, between Amity and Bleecker streets, there is now in course of erection, on the site of the old Lafarge Hotel, one of the largest and most magnificent hotels on the Western Continent, which, when completed, will throw in the shade the largest hotels in this country - rivalling even the "Grand Hotel" at Paris
ParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in magnificence. Since the disastrous fire in April, 1867, which destroyed the Winter Garden TheatreWinter Garden TheatreThe Winter Garden Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 1634 Broadway in midtown Manhattan.-History:The structure was built by William Kissam Vanderbilt in 1896 to be the American Horse Exchange....
, under the Lafarge House, that hotel has been closed.In March last it was sold at public auction
Public auctionA public auction is an auction held on behalf of a government in which the property to be auctioned is either property owned by the government, or property which is sold under the authority of a court of law or a government agency with similar authority....
by the heirs of the Lafarge estate E. S. Higgins, Esq., who is recorded fourth on the list of wealthy citizens for the sum of $1,000,000. This gentleman determined on erecting the largest hotel in the country, and will doubtless succeed, as when completed the new hotel will contain 630 rooms, 200 more than either the Fifth AvenueFifth Avenue HotelThe Fifth Avenue Hotel was a former luxury hotel located at 200 Fifth Avenue in New York City, New York from 1859 to 1908. It occupied the full Fifth Avenue frontage between 23rd Street and 24th Street, at the southwest corner of Madison Square in the borough of Manhattan.- Site and construction...
, MetropolitanMetropolitan Hotel (New York City)The Metropolitan Hotel in New York City was a Manhattan hotel opened September 1, 1852 and demolished in 1895.It occupied a three-hundred-foot brownstone-faced frontage of four floors above fashionable shopfronts occupying a full city block on Broadway and two hundred feet on Prince Street...
or St. Nicholas Hotel, and 100 more than the celebrated Lindell Hotel at St. LouisSt. Louis, MissouriSt. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
, which was burned some three years ago; 200 of the rooms will be parlors en suite. It is to be named the Southern Hotel, and is designed to accommodate 1,200 guests. It will be eight stories in height, surmounted by three gothic towers on the Broadway front. Three elevatorElevatorAn elevator is a type of vertical transport equipment that efficiently moves people or goods between floors of a building, vessel or other structures...
s, which will perform the trip from the first floor to the attic in thirty seconds, will be in use for the benefit of guests night and day. One item alone - upholstery and furniture - will involve an expenditure of $1,000,000. the articles mentioned having been ordered from Paris and this city.The halls and rooms will require carpeting sufficient to cover seven acres [28,000 m²], and will be of the finest quality - Brussels and velvet. All the rooms will be heated with steam, and on each floor hydrants, hose, and everything necessary will be furnished to extinguish fire. Then will be three large dining-rooms extending from the main hall on the second story to the Mercer street wall, the largest of which will accommodate 500 guests. There are at present; 350 men employed on the building, and the contractor calculates that he will complete it by the 1st of June next but the hotel will not be open for the reception of guests until the following August. When completed it will have cost the proprietor $1,600,000.
Collapse
On August 3, 1973, allegedly due in part to illegal alterations on a basement bearing wall, a section of the Broadway facade of the structure then known as the Broadway Central Hotel collapsed onto Broadway, killing four residents of the hotel. By this time the building had deteriorated into a welfare hotel, but it housed Art Bar, a successor for a brief time as a venue for the artists and sculptors who had congregated at Max's Kansas City. On the Mercer Street side of the hotel there was the Mercer Arts Center
, a complex of live theaters operated by Sy and Cynthia Kaback. The collapse occurred just hours before the theaters were due to be filled with hundreds of patrons. The remains of the hotel were demolished, and New York University
subsequently built a 22 story student dorm for law students on the site.
External links
- Grand Central Hotel photos and history (Access may be blocked from some countries)
- http://www.urbansculptures.com/buildingphotos/bway.html
- http://www.simplesevens.org/sykaback/12.htm