November 07, 2007

New "21" Club hotel would get its own NY Public Library

Somebody's one-upping The Library Hotel.

Orient-Express Hotels Ltd. plans to build a new 11-story hotel on W. 53rd Street that will not only connect to its “21” Club on 52nd Street, but will house a branch of the New York Public Library on the first floor, the New York Times reports today.

The library is an important part of the deal, as the $59 million hotel parcel is currently home to the Donnell branch of the NYPL.

The hotel would be marketed under a new “21” hotel brand name, with an opening date set for "early 2011," according to the Times. It would have "150 rooms costing $750 to $2,000 per night and a restaurant on the top floor."

The Donnell branch, located at 20 W. 53rd. Street, map, houses the library branch system's largest circulating collection of materials in languages other than English, according to the NYPL website.

Meanwhile, The Library Hotel, at 299 Madison Ave., map, is stocked with 6,000 books, organized by floor: social sciences, languages, math & science, technology, the arts, literature, history, general knowledge, philosophy and religion. (The literature theme for Dewey Decimal-numbered room 800.001 is "erotic," in case you need to know.)

Image credit: Amy Langfield/Newyorkology, taken during the NYPL's annual tour of "the stacks" normally off limits to the public.

November 7, 2007 07:52 AM in Foodology, Hotelology, Midtown

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