The St. Nicholas Hotel was a 600-room, mid-nineteenth century luxury hotel on

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

in the neighborhood of

SoHo Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develo ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. It opened on January 6, 1853, and by the end of the year had expanded to 1,000 rooms. The St.Nicholas raised the bar for a new standard of lavish appointments for a luxury hotel. It was the first New York City building to cost over . The hotel was said to have ended the

Astor House The Astor House was a luxury hotel in New York City. Located on the corner of Broadway and Vesey Street in what is now the Civic Center and Tribeca neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan, it opened in 1836 and soon became the best-known hotel in Ame ...

's preeminence in New York hostelry.

Description

The hotel was at 507–527

in the neighborhood of

. 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. The architects involved were J. B. Snook and

Griffith Thomas Griffith Thomas (1820—1879) was an American architect. He partnered with his father, Thomas Thomas, at the architecture firm of T. Thomas and Son.Spring Street, and 275 feet on Mercer Street. In progress at the time the hotel opened was an extension that was completed by the end of the year. The expanded hotel had 1,000 guest rooms. The hotel building then took up the full city block between Spring Street and Broome Street. The six-story hotel was of Italian architecture with modified Corinthian elements. The entrance was between four grooved white marble columns.

New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and cu ...

"NYCLPC SoHo – Cast-Iron Historic District Designation Report"
(August 14, 1873) p. 40 File:St. Nicholas Hotel 1853.jpg, St Nicholas Hotel in 1853 File:St Nicholas Hotel saloon 1853.jpg, Barbershop File:Attributed to Silas A. Holmes (American - Broadway Looking North from Between Grand and Broome Streets - Google Art Project.jpg, Broadway looking north File:St. Nicholas Hotel, Broadway, New York, from Robert N. Dennis collection crop.jpg, Broadway looking south

Interior

The hotel cost $1.2 million to build and accommodated one thousand guests weekly. Another $700,000 was spent to furnish the hotel completely. It had several dining rooms; on the second floor was the main dining room that could accommodate 400 guests. An elaborate men's hair-cutting salon illustrated by a gilded domed skylight catered to about a dozen guests at a time. File:St Nicholas dining room.jpg, Dining Room File:St Nicholas Hotel 1866 menu.jpg, 1866 menu File:St Nicholas Hotel 1858 register.jpg, 1858 register The main lobby had a white oak staircase leading to the upper floors. The first landing was illuminated by a $1,100 chandelier, one of many expensive and elaborate lighting fixtures found throughout the hotel. On the wall above this landing was a painting of the Dutch mythical gift-giving figure

Sinterklaas Sinterklaas () or Sint-Nicolaas () is a legendary figure based on Saint Nicholas, patron saint of children. Other Dutch names for the figure include ''De Sint'' ("The Saint"), ''De Goede Sint'' ("The Good Saint") and ''De Goedheiligman'' ("The ...

( aka St.Nicholas) placing presents into

Christmas stocking A Christmas stocking is an empty sock or sock-shaped bag that is hung on Saint Nicholas Day or Christmas Eve so that Saint Nicholas (or the related figures of Santa Claus and Father Christmas) can fill it with small toys, candy, fruit, coins or ot ...

s. The hotel's public rooms were paneled in mahogany and walnut and lit with gas lights. There was much use of gold paint throughout the hotel. The hotel had window curtains that cost $700 apiece and gold embroidered draperies at $1,000 per pair. Bathrooms featured bathtubs encased in carved walnut and there were many mirrors everywhere. The public hallways on all floors were heated with steam heat, and guestrooms on the sleeping floors each had stoves. The beds had springs. The hotel had a $1,500 grand piano and a bridal chamber that was outfitted with the finest

damask Damask (; ar, دمشق) is a reversible patterned fabric of silk, wool, linen, cotton, or synthetic fibers, with a pattern formed by weaving. Damasks are woven with one warp yarn and one weft yarn, usually with the pattern in warp-faced satin ...

. The hotel developed something of a reputation for having a "fast crowd", such that an agreement to an assignation there was reputed to be an admission of loss of chastityunless it happened to be a bride in the bridal suite. 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.

Significant events

The evening of November 25, 1864, the hotel was involved in a terrorist attack by the so-called

Confederate Army of Manhattan The Confederate Army of Manhattan was a group of eight Southern operatives who attempted to burn New York City on or after Evacuation Day, November 25, 1864, during the final stages of the American Civil War. In a plot orchestrated by Jacob Th ...

, that is, Confederate saboteurs who thought they would set fire to New York City. 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. Other hotels included Astor House and the Metropolitan Hotel. The attempt was ill-conceived and badly executed. 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.

Demise

By the later part of the nineteenth century, the hotel had declined in popularity, most New York City tourists preferring to stay farther uptown. Beginning in the mid-1870s, certain parts of the hotel building were converted to other uses. The Snook-designed Loubat store (No. 503–5ll) took the southern wing in 1878. The central portion (No.513–519) became Samuel Warner's store and warehouse in 1884. The hotel permanently closed then. A sliver of the original building was saved when the hotel was demolished in the twentieth century. This is now the luxury condos of 521 and 523 Broadway. The upper stories of No.521 have most of their original ornamented moldings on the windows. Although the hotel once occupied the entire block adjacent to Broome Street, the building has more or less disappeared; only Lady Footlocker and The Puma Store now occupy the first (ground) floor of the remaining sliver. 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 A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

, being artifact No.39.253.6.

References

Sources

* * * * * * * {{Broadway (Manhattan) History of New York City Defunct hotels in Manhattan Demolished hotels in New York City Hotel buildings completed in 1853 Broadway (Manhattan) 1853 establishments in New York (state) SoHo, Manhattan