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New Yorker Hotel (also known as Ramada Plaza New Yorker Hotel)
481 8th Avenue (34th St. & 8th Ave)
New York City, NY 10001

Elevator foyer
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Art Deco architecture symbolizes New York City and the 43-story New Yorker Hotel represents that image.

Construction began in 1929, just prior to the onset of the Great Depression -- and one year before ground was broken for The Empire State Building three blocks away. The $22.5 million building opened for business the day after New Year's Day in 1930. Zoning laws required the architects Sugarman and Berger to design the structure with a pyramidal, set-back tower that would provide the greatest height and the greatest amount of street side sunlight. At the time it opened, it was the largest at 2,500 rooms and tallest at 43-storys hotel in New York City. It boasted a pbx room with 92 telephone operators, a laundry with 150 workers, a barbershop had 42 chairs and 20 manicurists and a kitchen with 35 chefs. Penn Station just down the avenue and connected by underground tunnel deposited a steady streams of guests.

Sugarman & Berger also designed the Sutton Place (now known as aka Sutton Place) the Helmsley Middletowne Hotel and the Mayfair Hotel in Philadelphia.

Mack Kanner, a chief developer of the Garment Center, was the developer and builder of the hotel. However, according to Wikipedia the hotel's mortgage holder, Manufacturers Trust, hired Ralph Hitz to manage the venture. Hitz was able to turn a profit even during the depression. This prompted Manufacturers Trust to hire Hitz to control all of its hotels. In 1932, the National Hotel Management Company was created, with Ralph Hitz as the president. At Hitz's death in 1940, the National Hotel Management Company managed the New Yorker, the Lexington and the Belmont Plaza hotels (New York); the Congress (Chicago); the Netherland Plaza (Cincinnati); the Adolphus (Dallas); the Van Cleve (Dayton); the Book-Cadillac (Detroit); and the Nicollet (Minneapolis).

The opening brochure for the New Yorker describes the guest rooms: "Every bedroom has a radio loud speaker with a choice of four programs; both tub and shower bath; Servidor; circulating ice water; hand telephone; bed-head reading lamps; full-length mirror and full-sized beds. Every room has two or more windows and all rooms are outside and flooded with light and air. Floor secretaries on each floor take your messages when you are out and prevent the annoyance of standing in crowded lines in the lobby to receive your mail and keys."

The brochure describes the New Yorker's heat, light and power facilities: "Seventy-eight feet below the sidewalk is the largest private power plant in the world. Five steam engines and oil-burning Diesel engine produce enough light, heat, power and refrigeration for the average city of thirty-five thousand people. Compressed air forces pulverized coal under the furnaces and blows the ashes out again. The engineering equipment includes the air-cleaning machinery which draws in air on the roof, washes and purifies it, and then forces it down into the restaurant, lobby, ballrooms and other public spaces."

The brochure describes its bellboys as "snappy-looking as West Pointers". It was a Hotel New Yorker bellboy, Johnny Roventini, who served as tobacco company Phillip Morris' pitchman for twenty years, making famous their "Call for Phillip Morris" advertising campaign.

The New Yorker Hotel was purchased by Hilton Hotels in 1953 for $12.5 million and sold just three years later, in 1956, for $20 million to hotel executive Joseph Massaglia and his company Massaglia Hotels. In 1953 Massaglia Hotels also owned the Hotel Waikiki Biltmore in Honolulu, the Hotel Raleigh in Washington DC and the Hotel Miramar in Santa Barbara, California. In 1959, Massaglia sold the hotel to an investment syndicate known as New York Towers Ltd., which allowed the hotel to fall into foreclosure allowing Hilton to reacquire the building in 1967. The construction of new, more modern hotels directly caused the New Yorker to become unprofitable. Hilton closed the hotel in April 1972. The hotel was left vacant until Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church acquired it for $5.6 million to serve as its World Mission Center and church housing.

On July 1, 1982 4,000 followers of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon gathered in the second-floor Grand Ballroom of the New Yorker Hotel and entered into marriage contracts with strangers whom the reverend had picked for them. Beginning in 1994 the church began to re-open it as a public hotel. The church still controls it, but has entered into a lease with an entitiy known as the New Yorker Hotel Management Company to operate it.

In 2008 New Yorker Hotel Management Company hired Stonehill & Taylor to restore the hotel to its former glory. The 18-month, $70 million renovation included: Installation of a new heating and air conditioning system; Total overhaul of furniture, carpe

New Yorker Hotel (also known as Ramada Plaza New Yorker Hotel)
481 8th Avenue (34th St. & 8th Ave)
New York City, NY 10001

The art-deco lobby
--------------------
Art Deco architecture symbolizes New York City and the 43-story New Yorker Hotel represents that image.

Construction began in 1929, just prior to the onset of the Great Depression -- and one year before ground was broken for The Empire State Building three blocks away. The $22.5 million building opened for business the day after New Year's Day in 1930. Zoning laws required the architects Sugarman and Berger to design the structure with a pyramidal, set-back tower that would provide the greatest height and the greatest amount of street side sunlight. At the time it opened, it was the largest at 2,500 rooms and tallest at 43-storys hotel in New York City. It boasted a pbx room with 92 telephone operators, a laundry with 150 workers, a barbershop had 42 chairs and 20 manicurists and a kitchen with 35 chefs. Penn Station just down the avenue and connected by underground tunnel deposited a steady streams of guests.

Sugarman & Berger also designed the Sutton Place (now known as aka Sutton Place) the Helmsley Middletowne Hotel and the Mayfair Hotel in Philadelphia.

Mack Kanner, a chief developer of the Garment Center, was the developer and builder of the hotel. However, according to Wikipedia the hotel's mortgage holder, Manufacturers Trust, hired Ralph Hitz to manage the venture. Hitz was able to turn a profit even during the depression. This prompted Manufacturers Trust to hire Hitz to control all of its hotels. In 1932, the National Hotel Management Company was created, with Ralph Hitz as the president. At Hitz's death in 1940, the National Hotel Management Company managed the New Yorker, the Lexington and the Belmont Plaza hotels (New York); the Congress (Chicago); the Netherland Plaza (Cincinnati); the Adolphus (Dallas); the Van Cleve (Dayton); the Book-Cadillac (Detroit); and the Nicollet (Minneapolis).

The opening brochure for the New Yorker describes the guest rooms: "Every bedroom has a radio loud speaker with a choice of four programs; both tub and shower bath; Servidor; circulating ice water; hand telephone; bed-head reading lamps; full-length mirror and full-sized beds. Every room has two or more windows and all rooms are outside and flooded with light and air. Floor secretaries on each floor take your messages when you are out and prevent the annoyance of standing in crowded lines in the lobby to receive your mail and keys."

The brochure describes the New Yorker's heat, light and power facilities: "Seventy-eight feet below the sidewalk is the largest private power plant in the world. Five steam engines and oil-burning Diesel engine produce enough light, heat, power and refrigeration for the average city of thirty-five thousand people. Compressed air forces pulverized coal under the furnaces and blows the ashes out again. The engineering equipment includes the air-cleaning machinery which draws in air on the roof, washes and purifies it, and then forces it down into the restaurant, lobby, ballrooms and other public spaces."

The brochure describes its bellboys as "snappy-looking as West Pointers". It was a Hotel New Yorker bellboy, Johnny Roventini, who served as tobacco company Phillip Morris' pitchman for twenty years, making famous their "Call for Phillip Morris" advertising campaign.

The New Yorker Hotel was purchased by Hilton Hotels in 1953 for $12.5 million and sold just three years later, in 1956, for $20 million to hotel executive Joseph Massaglia and his company Massaglia Hotels. In 1953 Massaglia Hotels also owned the Hotel Waikiki Biltmore in Honolulu, the Hotel Raleigh in Washington DC and the Hotel Miramar in Santa Barbara, California. In 1959, Massaglia sold the hotel to an investment syndicate known as New York Towers Ltd., which allowed the hotel to fall into foreclosure allowing Hilton to reacquire the building in 1967. The construction of new, more modern hotels directly caused the New Yorker to become unprofitable. Hilton closed the hotel in April 1972. The hotel was left vacant until Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church acquired it for $5.6 million to serve as its World Mission Center and church housing.

On July 1, 1982 4,000 followers of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon gathered in the second-floor Grand Ballroom of the New Yorker Hotel and entered into marriage contracts with strangers whom the reverend had picked for them. Beginning in 1994 the church began to re-open it as a public hotel. The church still controls it, but has entered into a lease with an entitiy known as the New Yorker Hotel Management Company to operate it.

In 2008 New Yorker Hotel Management Company hired Stonehill & Taylor to restore the hotel to its former glory. The 18-month, $70 million renovation included: Installation of a new heating and air conditioning system; Total overhaul of fur