Hotel Belleclaire
2175 Broadway | also 2177 Broadway, 250 West 77th Street, 2171 Broadway | Upper West Side | built 1903
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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.
- 1903
Emery Roth's Hotel Belleclaire opens on Broadway
One of architect Emery Roth's first major commissions, the Art Nouveau and Secession-style hotel was built in 1901–03 and opened on January 12, 1903. Its bar drew theater people such as John and Lionel Barrymore. The city designated it a landmark on February 10, 1987, and it still operates as a hotel with 262 rooms.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1903
The ground floor opens with a Louis XV dining room, a Flemish cafe and a Moorish private dining room
Architects' and Builders' Magazine described the hotel's ground floor in January 1903. A promenade hall extending the entire length of the building led to a Louis XV dining room for ladies, a palm room in the Italian Renaissance manner, a Flemish cafe, a Mission library and a Moorish private dining room. Other space held flowers, cigars and news, plus telephone and telegraph offices, and the building had two passenger elevators and a freight elevator for baggage and servants.
- 1906
The Belleclaire evicts Russian writer Maxim Gorky
Maxim Gorky stayed at the Belleclaire during his 1906 visit to America until the management found he was staying with a woman who was not his wife and made him leave. Mark Twain and opera singer Bessie Abott were among the hotel's other early guests.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1920
A movie promotion's lion escapes into the Belleclaire's halls
In 1920 press agent Harry Reichenbach secretly turned a lion loose in the Belleclaire's halls to promote a motion picture, leaving hotel staff to catch and remove the animal. The stunt fit a hotel already known for colorful guests, including the opera soprano Bessie Abott.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1932
Mutual Life forecloses on the hotel and buys it at auction for $50,000
Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York took over the Belleclaire through foreclosure in 1932, buying the building at an auction that November for $50,000. During the Great Depression many long-term residents left, and the New York Times wrote that by the 1930s the hotel had lost any claim to distinction.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1939
The Belleclaire advertises itself to World's Fair visitors at $2.50 a night
The Landmarks Preservation Commission report says the hotel apparently lost many of its permanent residents in the Depression. By the 1939 World's Fair, a brochure promoted it as a transient hotel for fair visitors, with the nightly rate for a double room starting at $2.50.
- 1943
Kitchenettes are installed and large suites are split up as hotel services wind down
In early 1943 the Belleclaire installed kitchenettes, years after the city's Multiple Dwelling Law of 1929 had allowed kitchens in apartment-hotel rooms. Many of the bigger suites were divided into smaller units then too, and numerous hotel services were suspended. The Landmarks Preservation Commission describes luxury apartment hotels like the Belleclaire as casualties of the Depression that had to accept a new regime.
“…early 1943 that "kitchenettes" were installed in the Belleclaire ... many hotel services suspended…”
- 1983
A porter kills four people over five hours, ending with the hotel's owner in the lobby
Before dawn on February 3, 1983, a porter who lived in the Belleclaire shot three people to death in his seventh-floor apartment, police told the New York Times. When the 61-year-old owner-manager arrived for work at 9:30 a.m., the porter shot him to death in the lobby and wounded the owner's wife. He then wandered outside for a few minutes, returned to the lobby and waited calmly for officers, who arrested him.
Source: Internet Archive
- 1987
The city designates the Belleclaire a landmark
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Hotel Belleclaire an individual landmark on February 10, 1987, recognizing Emery Roth's Art Nouveau and Secession-style design even though the building had by then declined into a single-room-occupancy hotel.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1999
Shimmie Horn begins turning the faded hotel into a boutique property
Starting in 1999, hotelier Shimmie Horn renovated the deteriorated Belleclaire, restoring its Art Nouveau facade and redecorating its rooms after decades as a rundown single-room-occupancy hotel. The property later joined the Triumph Hotels group in 2014.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2020
The city houses homeless men in the hotel during the pandemic, dividing the neighborhood
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the city relocated numerous homeless men into the Belleclaire under a contract with the Hotel Association of New York City. The move set the men against some neighbors on the Upper West Side, who objected partly because several of the men were sex offenders, while several elderly residents of the hotel said it endangered their health. Many of the men were moved out in August 2021.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Hotel BelleclaireWikipedia
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