The Roosevelt Hotel (Manhattan)

The Roosevelt Hotel
General information
Location	Manhattan, New York City
Address	45 East 45th Street
Coordinates	40°45′17″N 73°58′39″W / 40.75472°N 73.97750°W / 40.75472; -73.97750Coordinates: 40°45′17″N 73°58′39″W / 40.75472°N 73.97750°W / 40.75472; -73.97750
Opening	1924
Owner	Pakistan International Airlines[1]
Management	Aimbridge Hospitality
Design and construction
Architect	George B. Post & Son
Other information
Number of rooms	1,015
Number of suites	52
Number of restaurants	2
Website
www.theroosevelthotel.com

The Roosevelt Hotel was a historic hotel located at 45 East 45th Street (between Madison Avenue and Vanderbilt Avenue) in Midtown Manhattan, Manhattan, New York City. Named in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt, the Roosevelt opened on September 22, 1924. It closed permanently on December 18, 2020.

Description[]

Marquee and entranceway

There are a total of 1,025 rooms in the hotel, including 52 suites. The 3,900-square-foot (360 m²) Presidential Suite has four bedrooms, a kitchen, formal living and dining areas, and a wrap-around terrace. The rooms are traditionally decorated, with mahogany wood furniture and light-colored bed coverings.

There are several eateries within the hotel, including:

• The "Roosevelt Grill", serving American food and regional specialties for breakfast.
• The "Madison Club Lounge", a bar and lounge with a 30-foot (9.1 m) mahogany bar, stained glass windows, and a pair of fireplaces.
• The "Vander Bar", a bistro with modern decor, serving craft beers^[2]

The Roosevelt has 30,000 square feet (2,800 m²) of meeting and exhibit space, including two ballrooms and 17 additional meeting rooms ranging in size from 300 to 1,100 square feet (28 to 102 m²). It has a business center, a concierge, fitness center, safety deposit boxes, valet laundry, valet or self-parking, and 15 retail tenants.^[3]

History[]

Opening[]

The Roosevelt Hotel, opened on September 23, 1924, was built by Niagara Falls businessman Frank A. Dudley and operated by the United Hotels Company.^[4] The hotel was designed by the firm of George B. Post & Son, and leased from The New York State Realty and Terminal Company, a division of the New York Central Railroad. The hotel, built at a cost of $12,000,000^[4] (equivalent to $181,212,000 in 2020), was the first to incorporate store fronts instead of bars in its sidewalk facades, as the latter had been prohibited due to Prohibition. The Roosevelt Hotel was at one time linked with Grand Central Terminal via an underground passage that connected the hotel to the train terminal. The passageway now terminates just across the street from the hotel's East 45th Street entrance. The Roosevelt housed the first guest pet facility and child care service in The Teddy Bear Room and had the first in-house doctor.

Hilton[]

Conrad Hilton purchased the Roosevelt^[5] in 1943,^[6] calling it "a fine hotel with grand spaces" and making the Roosevelt's Presidential Suite his home. In 1947, the Roosevelt became the first hotel to have a television set in every room.

Hilton Hotels purchased the Statler Hotels chain in 1954. As a result, they owned multiple large hotels in many major cities, as in New York, where they owned the Roosevelt, The Plaza, The Waldorf-Astoria, the New Yorker Hotel and now the Hotel Statler. Soon after, the federal government filed an antitrust action against Hilton. To resolve the suit, Hilton agreed to sell a number of their hotels, including the Roosevelt Hotel,^[7] which was sold to the Hotel Corporation of America on February 29, 1956 for $2,130,000.^[8]

Pakistan International Airlines[]

By 1978, the hotel was owned by the struggling Penn Central, which put it up for sale, along with two other nearby hotels, The Biltmore and The Barclay.^[9] The three hotels were sold to the Loews Corporation for $55 million. Loews immediately resold the Roosevelt to developer Paul Milstein for $30 million.^[10]

In 1979, Milstein leased the hotel to the Pakistan International Airlines through its investment arm PIA Investments Ltd. ("PIA"), with an option to purchase the building after 20 years at a set price of $36.5 million. Prince Faisal bin Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia was one of the investors in the 1979 deal.^[11] The hotel lost its operators $70 million over the following years, due to its outdated facilities.^[10] As a result, the hotel closed for an extensive $65 million (equivalent to $81,127,000 in 2020) renovation from 1995 to 1997.^[12] In 1999, PIA exercised their option to purchase the hotel, for the originally set price of $36.5 million.^[13] However, the Milstein family claimed that the hotel had increased in value to $250 million, and a legal battle resulted. The Milsteins agreed to sell the hotel, but required PIA to pay off a mortgage the Milsteins had taken out on the hotel, adding $23 million to the $36.5 million sale price, for a total of $59.5 million. When the suits were concluded in 2000, the Milsteins were required to adhere to the 1979 agreement and repay PIA and Prince Faisal the additional $23 million.^[10]

In 2005, PIA bought out its Saudi partner in a deal that included the prince's share in the in Paris, in exchange for $40 million and PIA's share of the Riyadh Minhal Hotel (a Holiday Inn located on property owned by the prince).^[3] PIA has since controlled 99 percent interest in the hotel, while the Saudis have only 1 percent.

In 2003, the hotel was again renovated, at a cost of $3.1 million.^[12] In July 2007, PIA announced that it was putting the hotel up for sale.^[14] The increasing profitability of the hotel, at the same time as the airline itself started to incur massive losses, resulted in the sale being abandoned.^[15] In 2011, The Roosevelt once again underwent extensive renovations, but remained open during the process.

In July 2020, it was reported that Donald Trump was interested in buying the hotel from Pakistan International Airlines.^[16][17] The same month, Pakistan's Cabinet Committee on Privatization decided to run the hotel through a joint venture rather than privatizing it.^[18]

In October 2020, it was announced the hotel would permanently close due to continued financial losses associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.^[19][20] The final day of operation^[21] was December 18, 2020.^[22]

Notable events[]

Guy Lombardo began leading the house band of the Roosevelt Grill in 1929; it was here that Lombardo also began holding an annual New Year's Eve radio broadcast with his band The Royal Canadians.^[23][24][25]

Lawrence Welk began his career at the Roosevelt Hotel in the summers while Lombardo took his music to Long Island. Music was piped live into each room via radio. Hugo Gernsback (of Hugo Award fame) started WRNY from a room on the 18th floor of The Roosevelt broadcasting live via a 125-foot tower on the roof.

From 1943 to 1955 the Roosevelt Hotel served as the New York City office and residence of Governor Thomas E. Dewey. Dewey's primary residence was his farm in Pawling, in Upstate New York, but he used Suite 1527 in the Roosevelt to conduct most of his official business in the city. In the 1948 presidential election, in which Dewey lost to incumbent President Harry S. Truman in a major upset, Dewey, his family, and staff listened to the election returns in Suite 1527 of the Roosevelt.

Though the Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned discrimination in public accommodations, the Men's Grill at the Roosevelt refused to admit women until a New York City law was passed in 1970. The law prohibited excluding women on the grounds that, though they welcomed the public, they were private clubs.

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Roosevelt Hotel (Manhattan).

• Official website
• Article about opening in Architecture and Building (1924)
• Article about opening in Hotel Monthly (1925) with floor plans