The Peninsula New York (Gotham Hotel)
696 5th Avenue | also 2 West 55th Street, 692 5th Avenue, 700 5th Avenue | Midtown | built 1905
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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.
- 1902
Hiss & Weekes design the Gotham to line up with the University Club next door
When plans for the Gotham were first publicized in 1902, the press praised how the hotel was fitted to McKim, Mead & White's University Club to the south. The plan called for a shared center line, a continuous arcade of five openings in each building and the same balustrade line. Architect H. Hobart Weekes, an alumnus of McKim, Mead & White, had also been among the draftsmen behind the club's first drawings.
“The architectural lines of the hotel will follow the lines of the University Club.”
- 1905
The Gotham Hotel opens with Senator Hanna's widow as its first resident
The Gotham opened for occupation in early October 1905 with 400 rooms, and by opening day every room facing Fifth Avenue was taken. Mrs. M. A. Hanna, widow of Senator Mark Hanna, whose Fifty-Fifth Street Company had built it, became the first resident, followed closely by the family of Senator T. C. Platt. The second floor held a banquet hall and ballroom, and the third floor private dining rooms.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1905
With no liquor license, the Gotham sends boys with wicker baskets to fetch guests' wine and cocktails
From its opening the Gotham faced the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church across 55th Street, well within the distance that barred liquor sales, and its legal fights failed. So the hotel hired boys with wicker baskets or milliners' boxes to run to a supply base a block away and fill guests' orders. Because guests paid the outside vendor, the hotel claimed it was not breaking the law. Manager Frank V. Bennett said nothing stopped the hotel from sending out for what a guest wanted.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1908
The Gotham goes to a foreclosure auction and sells for $2.45 million to Benjamin P. Cheney
Within three years of opening, the Gotham was auctioned in October 1908, with a $500,000 mortgage in foreclosure and prior liens of about $2 million. The hotel had cost about $2 million to build and another $1 million to $2 million to furnish. Benjamin P. Cheney, president of the Hotel Holding Company, bought it for $2.45 million. A 1914 resale to Franklin Pettit followed at $3.5 million.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1908
The Gotham's first operator, Frank V. Bennett, shoots himself in his hotel apartment
Frank V. Bennett, who ran the Arlington Hotel in Washington, leased the Gotham in 1903; Senator Mark Hanna, one of its backers, was a close friend. He sold his lease in October 1907, and the hotel's operating company handed the building back that December for unpaid rent. In September 1908, after a string of managers and a receivership at the hotel, Bennett fatally shot himself in his apartment there.
“Bennett fatally shot himself at his Gotham Hotel apartment in September 1908.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1909
Mrs. Richard Stevens hosts a Christmas dinner for 60 in the Gotham's Louis XV ballroom
On December 22, 1909, Mrs. Richard Stevens gave a Christmas dinner for 60 guests in the Gotham's Louis XV ballroom. More guests arrived afterward for dancing and a midnight buffet supper. The people named in the account included Charles Dana Gibson and his wife, Clarence Mackay and his wife, Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, and Robert Goelet and his wife.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1918
Jewelry worth $25,000 vanishes from a long-term couple's suite at the Gotham
Mr. and Mrs. George Bird had lived at the Gotham for 12 years when they came back on January 17, 1918 and found $25,000 worth of jewelry missing from their suite. It had been stolen while their maid was away. It was a rare blot on the hotel's record.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1932
The Depression pushes the Gotham into receivership
In 1932 the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company began a $2 million foreclosure action against the Gotham, and the hotel went into receivership. Within a few years apartments were offered with a serving pantry and electric refrigeration. A 1937 Alpine Room was added, and by 1938 the street-side restaurant had closed and five shops opened on the Fifth Avenue ground floor.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1938
A man on a 17th-floor ledge draws 10,000 people to Fifth Avenue, and a patrolman poses as a bellhop
On July 26, 1938, 26-year-old John William Warde climbed onto a 17th-floor ledge of the Gotham. NYPD Patrolman Charles V. Glasco went into the room in a borrowed bellhop's uniform and talked with him on and off for about ten and a half hours. At 10:38 p.m. Warde jumped before a crowd of some 10,000 at 55th Street and Fifth Avenue. Joel Sayre's 1949 New Yorker account became the basis for the 1951 film Fourteen Hours.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1966
A garage added for hotel guests is reportedly New York's first for an existing hotel
After buying the Gotham in March 1965, Wellington Associates, the partnership of Sol Goldman and Alexander DiLorenzo, acquired two neighboring buildings, 23 and 25 West 55th Street, and rebuilt them as an 18-story garage for 300 cars. It opened in 1966 and was reported to be the first garage in the city added to an existing hotel. Until then guests had parked in garages between Second and Ninth avenues, although most short-term guests, about 90 percent, came without a car.
“…parking garage opened in 1966 and was reportedly the first parking garage in New York City to be added to an existing hotel…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1984
A Swiss hotelier's renovation stalls after spending $120 million on a $30 million budget
Swiss hotelier Rene Hatt leased the Gotham in 1979 and closed it in 1981 to turn it into the ultra-luxury Nova-Park Gotham, cutting 330 rooms to 250 and adding a rooftop pool. By early 1984 his company had spent $120 million against a $30 million budget, with some floors rebuilt for looks after being renovated. Nova-Park AG gave the hotel back to its European lenders in November 1984 and went bankrupt in early 1985.
“…after Nova-Park AG had invested $120 million on the project, which had originally been budgeted at $30 million…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1988
After closing for renovation in 1981 and reopening as Maxim's de Paris, the hotel is bought by the Peninsula Group
The Gotham stayed a hotel under various owners until 1981, when it shut for a major renovation. It reopened in 1987 as Maxim's de Paris. A rooftop addition by Stephen B. Jacobs & Associates, designed in 1980, brought glass atria and slanting roofs. The Peninsula Group bought the hotel in fall 1988 and renamed it the Peninsula, adding it to its worldwide chain of luxury hotels.
- 1989
The city designates the Gotham Hotel a landmark
On June 6, 1989 the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Gotham Hotel, by then the Peninsula, a landmark, after a February hearing at which three witnesses, including the owner's representative, spoke in favor and none against. Its report described the hotel as a rare Fifth Avenue survivor of the golden age of luxury hotels, and a stylistic counterpoint to the St. Regis across the avenue.
“…is one of the few structures on Fifth Avenue which recalls the golden age of luxury hotels…”
- 1998
A $45 million overhaul guts the hotel and keeps only its best interior details
Ten years after the Peninsula Group bought the hotel, it closed in 1998 for a $45 million overhaul that essentially gutted the building and kept only the best interior details. Designers Carol Franklin Associates, told to create a Parisian ambience, brought in African woods, French chandeliers and Italian marble. The designer's website says security cameras above the ceilings can be lowered at the request of royal guests.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
Further reading
- The Peninsula New YorkWikipedia
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