The Michelangelo

777 7th Avenue | also 152 West 51st Street, 148 West 51st Street, 150 West 51st Street | Times Square | built 1927

Open on the map11 entries

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

  1. 1924

    October 22

    Manger Hotels buys the Seventh Avenue block after plans for a sports arena fall through

    It was announced on October 22, 1924 that Manger Hotels, owned by the Manger brothers, had bought the Seventh Avenue block between 50th and 51st Streets for about $5.5 million. The sellers were Realty Associates and Bing & Bing, and plans for a sports arena on the site had fallen through. H. Craig Severance was engaged to design a hotel with 1,250 rooms, and Bing & Bing became the general contractor.

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1926

    November 15

    The Hotel Manger opens as the Times Square area's largest hotel

    Manger Hotels bought the Seventh Avenue block in October 1924 for about $5.5 million, after plans for a sports arena there fell through. H. Craig Severance designed the Spanish Renaissance hotel, which opened on November 15, 1926. It connected to the Roxy Theatre, which opened a few months later in March 1927.

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1927

    A woman dies after jumping from the Hotel Manger onto the roof over its entrance

    Ephemeral New York cites a 1927 New York Times report about a woman who died after jumping from the Hotel Manger. She had been assigned Room 1239 when she arrived. Guests staying on the second floor heard a thud at about 10 o'clock, and her body was seen on the extension over the hotel's main entrance.

    Source: Ephemeral New York

  4. 1931

    Renamed the Hotel Taft, the building becomes a big-band radio hub

    Bing & Bing bought the hotel in 1931 and renamed it the Hotel Taft after President William Howard Taft. The George Hall Orchestra played from the hotel on CBS Radio at noon, and Glenn Miller, the Dorsey brothers and Artie Shaw were among the bands that performed. Vincent Lopez had a residency there for 20 years.

    Source: Wikipedia

  5. 1935

    July

    Singer Dolly Dawn lands her job with George Hall's band after auditioning at the Taft

    As a teenager Theresa Stabile, then called Billie Starr, turned up at the Taft Hotel, where George Hall's band regularly played, and auditioned because the band's female vocalist was about to leave. She got the job, and Hall and a Journal-American writer came up with the name Dolly Dawn. She began singing with the band in July 1935, and its noon show was broadcast nationally on CBS radio from the Taft every day but Sunday.

    Source: Internet Archive

  6. 1950

    January to July

    Vincent Lopez broadcasts the television show Dinner Date from the Taft

    Vincent Lopez, who performed in residence at the Hotel Taft, broadcast a television show from the hotel called Dinner Date on the DuMont network from January to July 1950. He also did a radio show from the hotel, Shake the Maracas, with Gloria Parker.

    “Vincent Lopez performed in residency for 20 years and broadcast a radio show from the hotel... a TV show from the Taft on the DuMont…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  7. 1975

    Penn Mutual brings a foreclosure action against the Taft Hotel, which goes into receivership

    In November 1975 the Taft Hotel was in receivership, and Penn Mutual Life Insurance had begun a foreclosure action. Occupancy was running at about 51 percent, roughly where it stood when Gilbert Federbush's Urban Renewal Housing and Development Corporation took title a year earlier, when the hotel was reported to be losing about $80,000 a month. According to agents of the court-appointed receiver, unpaid real-estate taxes had risen past a million dollars, and arrears on the $7.4 million first mortgage held by Penn Mutual had reached $300,000.

    Source: Internet Archive

  8. 1984

    December

    Developers start gutting the Taft for condominiums, a hotel and shops

    In late 1984 the Taft Partners Development Group began converting the Taft, for nearly sixty years a Times Square-area tourist landmark, into a complex mixing hotel, residential and commercial uses. The plans called for gutting the building to its exterior walls and creating 448 condominiums, 270 hotel rooms, and retail and office space, at a cost developer Steven Goodstein said would exceed $100 million. He described the one- and two-bedroom condominiums, priced at $125,000 to $500,000, as aimed at corporate buyers who needed a weekday place in town.

    Source: Internet Archive

  9. 1985

    The Hotel Taft shuts down after a long decline

    The Taft catered to a Broadway tourist crowd for decades but fell on hard times in the 1970s and shut down in 1985. As the Hotel Manger, it had reportedly been raided for serving alcohol during Prohibition. The building was then converted into condominiums and a smaller hotel.

    Source: Ephemeral New York

  10. 1992

    Starhotels renames the property The Michelangelo

    Park Lane Hotels International renamed the hotel portion the Parc Fifty One in 1990. In 1992 Starhotels bought it for $42 million and renamed it The Michelangelo. The upper floors of the building had been turned into condominiums in the mid-1980s.

    Source: Wikipedia

  11. 2015

    January

    A New York Times analysis of city data puts Executive Plaza at the top for nonprimary residences

    A January 2015 New York Times story built on a review of city tax data by the Independent Budget Office listed Executive Plaza, at 150 West 51st Street, first for the share of apartments that are not owners' primary homes, at 74.4 percent. Only 97 of the 379 apartments in the building that got the tax abatement in 2012 still qualified for it. The story ran under the headline "Why the Doorman Is Lonely."

    Source: Internet Archive

Further reading

Nearby

All 91 buildings with stories in Times Square