The Roger Hotel

129 Madison Avenue | also 131 Madison Avenue | Midtown South | built 1931

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.

1931
October 12
The Roger Williams Hotel opens atop the Madison Avenue Baptist Church's leased land
During the Depression in 1929, the Madison Avenue Baptist Church, organized in 1838, leased its property to a developer, and architects Jardine, Murdock & Wright designed a 15-story residential hotel with a church sanctuary built into the lower floors. The hotel opened October 12, 1931, as the Roger Williams Hotel, named for the founder of America's first Baptist congregation, and its sanctuary reused stained-glass windows made after 1870 by Franz Xavier Zettler for the church's earlier building.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
1934
November
Henry Miller finishes writing Black Spring while staying at the hotel
Writer Henry Miller stayed at the Roger Williams Hotel with Anaïs Nin in November 1934, completing his book Black Spring during the visit. The hotel had become known for long-term literary and artistic tenants even as the building doubled as a working church.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
1985
The Red Cross opens an emergency family shelter inside the hotel
The American Red Cross operated an emergency family center at the Roger Williams Hotel starting in 1985, continuing for at least two years, after the hotel had declined through the 1970s and undergone renovations. Gotham Hospitality Group later took over the lease in 1995 and carried out extensive renovations, eventually rebranding the property as Hotel AKA NoMad.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

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