The Jane Hotel
113 Jane Street | also 115 Jane Street, 505 West Street | West Village | built 1908
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1907
Olivia Sage gives $150,000 toward the sailors' home, the largest seamen's gift to that date
The Seamen's Friend Society's trustees worried about the expense of constructing a new building when, in April 1907, Olivia Sage sent an unsolicited gift of $150,000. The widow of the financier Russell Sage, she was a relative of the society's president, the Rev. Charles A. Stoddard. The gift was said to be the largest single donation for seamen's work up to then, and she asked that the building be correct and adequate from the outset.
“…received an unsolicited gift of $150,000 from Olivia Sage. The widow of financier Russell Sage…”
- 1908
The Seamen's Friend Society dedicates a 200-room sailors' home
The American Seamen's Friend Society dedicates its new Sailors' Home and Institute on October 7, 1908. Architect William A. Boring designs it in a Georgian Revival style, with 200 bedrooms, a chapel, an auditorium, a bowling alley and a swimming pool. Seamen can rent a room for 25 cents a night.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1912
Titanic crew survivors take shelter at the sailors' home
After the Titanic sinks in April 1912, its surviving crew members who reach New York aboard the Carpathia are housed at the Sailors' Home and Institute on Jane Street. The building was opened to serve the city's seafarers, and for a short time it shelters men who have just lived through the disaster.
Source: Ephemeral New York
- 1931
A new Seamen's House opens in Chelsea and this building becomes a relief center
The Seamen's Friend Society had planned with the YMCA and the Seamen's Christian Association to build the new Seamen's House (550 West 20th Street), dedicated on November 2, 1931. The Sailors' Home and Institute was officially closed then. Rather than being sold, it became the Seamen's Relief Center annex, which gave free beds and meals to destitute seamen through the Depression and World War II.
- 1946
The YMCA removes the tower beacon and the building becomes the Jane-West Hotel
The property was officially conveyed to the YMCA in 1944, which in 1946 took down the beacon that had topped the corner tower. The Landmarks Preservation Commission read the removal as a symbolic end to the building's institutional history. The Jane-West Corporation acquired it in 1946 and ran it as the Jane-West Hotel.
“…removed the beacon from the tower in 1946, symbolically signaling the end of its institutional history…”
- 1972
Theater for the New City opens an off-off-Broadway house on the ground floor
Around July 1972, Theater for the New City began running an off-off-Broadway theater on the ground floor of the Jane West, converting the former auditorium. The space was cramped and had leaky ceilings, and actors often rehearsed on the street or on a nearby pier. At the time, the hotel above housed many long-term residents on welfare.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1998
Hedwig and the Angry Inch plays the Jane Street Theatre in a former ballroom
In 1997 the Westside Theater Company leases the ballroom space in the building, then the Riverview hotel, and converts it into the Jane Street Theatre, an Off-Broadway house with about 280 seats. Hedwig and the Angry Inch is presented there in 1998, and tick, tick... BOOM! follows in 2001.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2000
The Landmarks Commission designates the Hotel Riverview a city landmark
After an October 31, 2000 public hearing, the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the building on November 28, 2000. Six people testified in support, among them spokespeople for State Senator Thomas Duane, the Historic Districts Council and the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. A representative of the owner said the owner looked forward to a working relationship with the Commission.
- 2009
Police raid the Jane's new nightclub for lacking an assembly permit
A nightclub opened in the hotel's lobby bar, ballroom and mezzanine in June 2009, and New York magazine described it as the most happening scene in town. Neighbors soon complained about noise. In October 2009 it was raided after police found that the bar had no assembly permit. The operators closed the ballroom while seeking one, but inspectors found more code violations, and it reopened in May 2010.
“It was raided in October 2009 after police discovered that the bar did not have an assembly permit.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2009
The building reopens as the Jane, a boutique hotel
A group of four investors that includes Sean MacPherson buys the former sailors' home for $27 million in early 2008 and begins renovating it. The first renovated guestrooms open that June, and in June 2009 a nightclub opens in the lobby bar, ballroom and mezzanine.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- American Seamen's Friend Society Sailors' Home and InstituteWikipedia
- The nautical loveliness of a Jane Street hotelEphemeral New York
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