New Yorker Hotel
481 8th Avenue | also 305 West 34th Street, 303 West 34th Street, 16 Penn Plaza | Hudson Yards | built 1929
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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.
- 1928
Developer Mack Kanner drives a golden rivet into the New Yorker's rising steel frame
At a ceremony on October 25, 1928, the developer Mack Kanner hammered in a golden rivet to mark the steel frame, whose superstructure was starting to climb above the foundation. The site had just been cleared of about 2.5 million cubic feet of rock in an excavation that cost $1 million and that the New York Herald Tribune called possibly the deepest ever dug in Manhattan. By then the plan called for 45 stories above ground.
“At a ceremony on October 25, 1928, Kanner drove a golden rivet into the hotel's steel frame…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1930
The Art Deco New Yorker Hotel opens as the city's largest
Developer Mack Kanner's 42-story New Yorker Hotel, designed by Sugarman & Berger, opens on January 2, 1930, at 481 Eighth Avenue with 2,500 rooms, making it the city's largest hotel. Its basement power plant, with more than 200 direct-current motors, is then the largest private power plant in the United States.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1933
Bellboy Johnny Roventini is hired to call out for Philip Morris
In 1933 the advertising executive Milton H. Biow went to the New Yorker Hotel with a Philip Morris executive to watch the bellboy Johnny Roventini at work. By legend Biow paid him a dollar to page a man named Philip Morris, and Roventini's cry served as his audition. He was hired in April 1933 to deliver the "Call for Philip Morris" line on the company's radio programs.
“In April 1933, Roventini was hired to make a 'Call for Phil-ip Mor-rees' on the different radio programs sponsored by the company.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1943
Nikola Tesla dies at the New Yorker Hotel
Inventor Nikola Tesla, who has lived in room 3327 for the last years of his life, dies at the New Yorker Hotel in 1943. Each year on his birthday he had given speeches to reporters there. His presence later continues to draw electrical engineers and technology enthusiasts to the building.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1960
A fire on the sixth floor kills one person and closes seven stories for two days
A large fire at the New Yorker in November 1960 left one person dead and harmed the sixth floor. The Fire Department ordered seven stories closed, but they reopened within two days once the owners had made emergency repairs. In September the hotel's managers had announced renovations by New York Towers, which had bought the hotel with plans to spend $2 million, including air conditioning throughout.
“The hotel experienced a large fire that November, which killed one person and damaged the sixth floor.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1972
The hotel closes and is sold for a failed hospital conversion
The New Yorker Hotel closes on April 19, 1972, and is sold to the French and Polyclinic Medical School and Health Center. The school's attempt to turn the Art Deco tower into a hospital fails, and by early 1976 the building's only occupant is a ground-level bank branch.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1976
The Unification Church agrees to buy the hotel for its headquarters
The Unification Church, led by Sun Myung Moon, agrees in May 1976 to buy the former hotel and turns it into the World Mission Center, its global headquarters. About 1,500 full-time volunteers in the New York area are to fix up the building themselves and live in it.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1994
The New Yorker reopens as a hotel after 22 years
The New Yorker Hotel Management Company reopens the building as a commercial hotel on June 1, 1994, with an initial 178 guest rooms on the upper floors while the Unification Church keeps offices and dormitories on the lower stories. Room count grows to 1,005 by 1999 as the reopening continues in stages.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2001
The hotel donates 10,000 free nights to volunteers after the Twin Towers attacks
According to the hotel's own history, the New Yorker donated 10,000 free nights to volunteers in the aftermath of the Twin Towers attacks in 2001. The hotel's timeline titles the entry for the year Free Rooms for 9/11 Heroes.
Source: newyorkerhotel.com
- 2008
The IEEE names the New Yorker's direct current power plant a Milestone
In 2008 the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers named the hotel's direct current power plant a Milestone in Electrical Engineering, one of 75 such honors worldwide at the time. When the hotel opened, the plant contained over 200 direct current motors with a total rating of 3,700 horsepower. It was then the largest privately owned power plant in the country and an early example of cogeneration.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2016
Hillary Clinton gives her presidential concession speech in the Grand Ballroom
According to the hotel's own history, Hillary Clinton picked the New Yorker's Grand Ballroom in 2016 as the place to speak to reporters and concede the presidential race. By then the building had been a Wyndham hotel for two years, as the same timeline records.
Source: newyorkerhotel.com
- 2024
A guest who never owned the hotel is indicted for filing fake deeds for it
Mickey Barreto checked into the New Yorker for one night in 2018, sued in housing court when the hotel refused him a lease, and won the right to stay. By May 2019 he was uploading a fake deed to the city's ACRIS portal that claimed to move the hotel's ownership to him from the real owner, the Unification Church. In 2024 the Manhattan District Attorney's office charged him with 10 counts of criminal contempt and 14 counts of offering a false instrument for filing.
Source: amny.com
Further reading
- New Yorker HotelWikipedia
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