June 06, 2006

Dubai royal family to bring back Knickerbocker Hotel

The royal family of Dubai last week bought the landmarked Knickerbocker building at the corner of 42nd and Broadway with plans to turn the century-old Beaux-Arts structure with a private subway entrance into a five-star hotel, the New York Times reports today.

The Knickerbocker, which has housed offices, (including Newsweek magazine,) textile showrooms and Gap-style retail shops for decades, was once a grand hotel with 556 rooms with restaurant seating for 2,000, according to a profile of the Knickerbocker Hotel written by Christopher Gray, the NY Times' architectural historian. The design -- with its red-brick, limestone and terra cotta French Renaissance facade and mansard roof -- was complete in 1901 but the original investors backed out and it was John Jacob Astor IV who stepped in during May 1905 to pay for the hotel's completion, Gray reported. In addition to its private entrance to the Times Square subway, (still visible, but locked,) the hotel also had pneumatic tubes used to send message throughout the building.

Legend has it the martini was invented in 1912 at the Knickerbocker, which was also the home to celebrities such as the tenor Enrico Caruso, who was known to sing form his window to fans who gathered below at the edges of Times Square.

Istithmar, an investment arm of the Dubai government, paid $300 million for the Knickerbocker, the latest acquisition during something of a New York real estate buying spree, including Loehmann's department store. Architects are expected to design the hotel, with approval of the city's Landmark Preservation Commission, to accommodate 250 to 300 rooms.

Earlier: Gramercy Park Hotel: plenty of private park keys
More hotels headed for demolition, condo conversion
Waldorf-Astoria's private rail platform forever closed
Drake to sell for $440 mln, still faces demolition - Post
NY's golden hotel era architects: Schultze & Weaver
Plaza to reopen in 2007 with new 'condo-hotel' rooms
Buckingham Hotel reopens Martinelli Penthouse
New Yorker to relight sign in $43 million renovation
Seven NYC hotels awarded Michelin 5-star rating
The Plaza closes for 18-month renovation

June 6, 2006 09:59 AM in Architecture, History, Hotelology, Midtown

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