Olcott Hotel
Encyclopedia
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
's Upper West Side
Upper West Side
The Upper West Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, New York City, that lies between Central Park and the Hudson River and between West 59th Street and West 125th Street...
. It was built by the Lapidus Engineering Company beginning in late 1925. The edifice was one of a number of structures constructed at the time from Central Park West
Central Park West
Central Park West is an avenue that runs north-south in the New York City borough of Manhattan, in the United States....
to Columbus Avenue on Seventy-Second Street, in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. The Fairfield Hotel was another building going up concurrently. Its builder was Louis Israelson and Associates. The Olcott Hotel was sixteen stories when it was completed. It opened in 1930.
Ownership
Ralph Reck, manager of the Olcott Hotel, was elected Chairman of the Board of the Hotel Executive Club in January 1937. In August 1946 the hotel was sold to Atwood C. Wolfe for cash above a purchase money first mortgage of $850,000 made by the Travelers Insurance Company. Its property value was assessed at $1,250,000. Hotel Olcott, Inc., was represented by attorney Abraham J. Halprin. The property was sold to Wolfe through George W. Warneicke. The buyer was represented by Dreyer & Traub.The Olcott Hotel was owned by a syndicate composed of E. Fishbein, S. Mendick, and M. Kaplan in 1956. In September of that year they purchased the Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
apartment-hotel, which was located at 12 West Seventy-Second Street near Central Park West. The syndicate leased the Oliver Cromwell, a twenty-nine story edifice, from the Olicrom Operating Corporation, who represented Herbert Riesner. The deal was brokered by Des Gabor, vice-president of M. Morgenthau-Seixas Company. The title was insured by the City Title Insurance Company.
Joseph Slutsky, 76, owned the Olcott Hotel along with his sons, Ben and Julius, at the time of his death in November 1958. Slutsky founded the Nevele
Hotel in New York City in 1901. The Slutskys formerly owned the Raleigh Hotel and Metropole Hotel in Miami, Florida
Miami, Florida
Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...
.
Eugene Fishbein managed the Olcott Hotel in 1980. At the time he had been in charge of operations for twenty-five years. In 1980 all units in the hotel had pantries or kitchenettes. Almost two thirds of its four hundred and fifty units were rent stabilized. Long-term occupants paid $300 to $450
per month for studio apartment
Studio apartment
A studio apartment, also known as a studio flat , efficiency apartment or bachelor/bachelorette style apartment, is a small apartment which combines living room, bedroom, and kitchen or kitchenette into a single room...
s. One bedroom apartments cost from $400 to $600 monthly. Incoming tenants paid fifty percent more than the stabilized rates. New tenants tended to be transient, people from abroad or members of the entertainment industry. They stayed only two to three weeks on average.
In 1995 Olcott Hotel owners offered to pay $600,000 to restore the building if the New York City Planning Department agreed to legalize its
twenty-nine professional suites and one hundred twenty-two transient hotel rooms. The hotel had been operating for more than thirty years without proper zoning permission. Lee Rosen, the building's general manager, wanted the building to remain exactly as it is.
Hotel events and people
to the roof.
In 1976 Jeff Bayonne purchased the Manhattan (New York) Bridge
Contract bridge
Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 playing cards played by four players in two competing partnerships with partners sitting opposite each other around a small table...
Club, a duplicate bridge
Duplicate bridge
Duplicate bridge is the most widely used variation of contract bridge in club and tournament play. It is called duplicate because the same bridge deal is played at each table and scoring is based on relative performance...
club which had been on the sixteenth floor of the hotel for decades. In 1992 he acquired the Gotham, a declining contract bridge
Contract bridge
Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 playing cards played by four players in two competing partnerships with partners sitting opposite each other around a small table...
club across the hall.
In October 1980 Mark David Chapman
Mark David Chapman
Mark David Chapman is an American prison inmate who murdered former Beatles member John Lennon on December 8, 1980. He committed the crime as Lennon and Yoko Ono were outside of The Dakota apartment building in New York City. Chapman aimed five shots at Lennon, hitting him four times in his back...
stayed at the Waldorf Astoria
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
The Waldorf-Astoria is a luxury hotel in New York. It has been housed in two historic landmark buildings in New York City. The first, designed by architect Henry J. Hardenbergh, was on the Fifth Avenue site of the Empire State Building. The present building at 301 Park Avenue in Manhattan is a...
, the YMCA
YMCA
The Young Men's Christian Association is a worldwide organization of more than 45 million members from 125 national federations affiliated through the World Alliance of YMCAs...
, and the Olcott Hotel before he assassinated John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
.
In the mid 80's cult icon Tiny Tim
Tiny Tim (musician)
Tiny Tim , , born in Manhattan, was an American singer and ukulele player. He was most famous for his rendition of "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" sung in a distinctive high falsetto/vibrato voice.-Rise to fame:Born to Lebanese parents in 1932, Khaury displayed musical talent at a very young age...
and then manager Rick Hendrix
Rick Hendrix
Richard Binghames Hendrix Jr. , better known by the name Rick Hendrix, is an American entertainment promoter and songwriter of southern gospel, country music and pop music...
lived at the Olcott Hotel for a short period of time.
The latter residence was just a block away from The Dakota
The Dakota
The Dakota, constructed from October 25, 1880 to October 27, 1884, is a co-op apartment building located on the northwest corner of 72nd Street and Central Park West in the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City...
apartments.
Nina Youshkevitch, a distinguished ballet dancer and teacher, maintained a dance studio in the Hotel for many years, and was also a resident.