Meyer's Hotel

119 South Street | also 118 South Street, 44 Peck Slip, 116 South Street | Financial District | built 1873

Open on the map4 entries

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

1. 1873

   John B. Snook designs a new building for William H. Onderdonk on the corner of South Street and Peck Slip

   In 1873 a four-story, hipped-roof building like those of Schermerhorn Row was replaced by a larger structure for the Long Island attorney William H. Onderdonk. The architect was John B. Snook, who also designed the first Grand Central Station. His drawings and ledger books, kept at the New-York Historical Society, show that the two big pediments dated 1873 and the corner door were not in the first design.

   Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

2. 1883

   Liquor merchant Henry L. Meyer buys the building and turns its corner store into a bar

   Henry L. Meyer, a liquor merchant, bought the building from Harriet Onderdonk in 1883. He turned the corner store into a bar right away, his third, since he already owned two, on Front Street and Pearl Street. Its original polished wood bar and mirrors came through Hurricane Sandy.

   Source: Forgotten New York

3. 1903

   Meyer adds 41 hotel rooms in 1903; guests are said to have included Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill

   In 1903 Meyer fitted the upper floors with offices on the second floor and 41 hotel rooms above them, with sixteen each on the fourth and fifth floors and nine on the third, and the building became Meyer's Hotel. Thomas Edison, Annie Oakley, Buffalo Bill Cody, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are reputed to have stayed. Theodore Roosevelt reportedly stopped by the bar now and then for a pint while he led the city's police department, supposedly checking on officers who drank on duty.

   Source: Forgotten New York

4. 1952

   Steve Schiaffino renames Meyer's Restaurant the Paris Bar, and the old hotel rooms later become apartments

   In 1951 Silvio (Steve) Schiaffino bought the hotel from the estate of Henriette Meyers and added bathrooms and a sprinkler system. In 1952 he bought the restaurant and renamed it the Paris Bar and Restaurant, after his first Paris, opened in 1934 at 164 South Street, which the city took by eminent domain around 1950. A later owner converted the top floors into twenty-eight apartments, occupied from 1985.

   Source: Forgotten New York

Nearby

• 40 Peck Slip1 entry
• 115 South Street3 entries
• 38 Peck Slip1 entry
• 36 Peck Slip1 entry
• 113 South Street1 entry
• 112 South Street1 entry

All 276 buildings with stories in Financial District