Row NYC Hotel (Hotel Lincoln, Milford Plaza)

700 8th Avenue | Times Square | built 1961

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

  1. 1928

    February 13

    Governor Smith lights the Hotel Lincoln's rooftop sign by pressing a button in Albany

    The Hotel Lincoln, on the Eighth Avenue block from 44th to 45th Street, opened formally to the public on February 13, 1928, following Lincoln Day exercises in its lobby. Governor Smith joined in from Albany, where he pressed a button in the executive offices that lit a huge sign on the hotel's roof.

    Source: The New York Times

  2. 1929

    June 4

    An inventor demonstrates radio carried through the Lincoln's steel framework

    Dr. F. L. R. Satterlee, a retired New York X-ray experimenter, demonstrated a new way of sending radio programs from a central receiving point to the rooms of a hotel or other large building. His system ran the signal through the building's steel framework instead of special networks of wire. The Times reported the test, held at the Hotel Lincoln, on June 5, 1929.

    Source: The New York Times

  3. 1943

    Count Basie's band becomes the first nonwhite band to play the Lincoln's Blue Room

    The hotel's Blue Room was a popular venue for name bands in the late 1930s and 1940s, competing with nightclubs for business, and Variety called the Lincoln an important danceband outlet. Count Basie's band was the first nonwhite band to play there, in 1943. Erskine Hawkins and Artie Shaw also performed in the room, which closed in early 1942, reopened that March, and shut again for renovation in 1946.

    “Basie's band had been the first nonwhite band to perform at the Blue Room in 1943.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 1956

    August 7

    The Lincoln's last seven permanent guests take $3,000 buyouts as its furnishings are auctioned

    On the day of the deadline, the last seven permanent guests of the Lincoln Hotel agreed to give up their rent-controlled rooms in return for $3,000 each from Webb & Knapp. They accepted shortly before the 5 p.m. cutoff, while an auction of the hotel's furnishings went on around them. The alternative was eviction proceedings.

    Source: The New York Times

  5. 1962

    The Manhattan Hotel employs a staffer just to handle guests in their own languages

    By 1962 the Manhattan Hotel, as the Lincoln was then called, had Sonia Verdonck on staff dedicated solely to serving foreign guests in their native tongues. A Times feature headlined the hotel's service in eight languages and noted that the steady flow of foreign statesmen, businessmen and tourists had made language skills a necessity rather than a luxury for New York hotels.

    Source: The New York Times

  6. 1974

    December 7

    The Royal Manhattan closes after losing about $1 million a year

    The Royal Manhattan, as the hotel was then called, dimmed its blue neon lights and shut down on the night of December 7, 1974, after operating losses of about $1 million a year. Bellman Duke McNeill, who had worked there since 1957, remembered a swinging Broadway high spot. A guest who checked out that morning complained that the previous night had brought no ice, no room service and a closed restaurant, and employees were let go just before Christmas.

    Source: The New York Times

  7. 1977

    The closed Royal Manhattan's restaurant appears in the 1977 film Barbara Broadcast

    After the hotel closed in 1974, homeless people frequented the boarded-up building, while a group of Europeans led by the Israeli investor Shmuel Flatto-Sharon, who bought it in 1976, failed to find financing for an apartment conversion. Radley Metzger's 1977 erotic film Barbara Broadcast used the hotel's restaurant as a location.

    “Its restaurant was featured in the 1977 erotic film Barbara Broadcast, directed by Radley Metzger.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  8. 1980

    August 1

    The Milford Plaza reopens as the Official Broadway Theater Hotel, with rooms from $39

    The Milstein family reopened the hotel as the Milford Plaza on August 1, 1980, with rooms priced at $39 to $49, made possible by a tax abatement. They moved the main entrance to 45th Street to catch theatergoers, put Broadway show advertisements on the Eighth Avenue facade, and had the Broadway League brand it the Official Broadway Theater Hotel. Community Board 5 gave the family an award for the courageous reopening.

    “Milford Plaza reopened on August 1, 1980. It offered moderately priced rooms for between $39 and $49.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  9. 1982

    June 21

    A Milford Plaza television ad set to Lullaby of Broadway first airs

    The hotel's publicity campaign included a television advertisement called Lullabuy of Broadway, produced by Cinema Projects, which first aired on June 21, 1982. Set to the song Lullaby of Broadway, it became widely known, and Paul Milstein later called it the first national advertising gimmick for a hotel that was not part of a chain.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

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