So long to the Hotel Pennsylvania

OP, do you think your threads about change bring people to tears and depression?

They don't. You're not even remotely effective. Go back to Parler.

Amazed that this is not landmarked.

R1, people like you brought us the "new" Penn station.

Not a New Yorker but I always had a soft spot for this structure. Yes, it is very rundown but look what they did to preserve the Waldorf Astoria. Must every bit of history be destroyed for a steel and glass structure? This is really sad news.

New homeless shelter?

It was a good value in a great location....It was easy to invite trade over and leave your door unlocked

I always get it mixed up with Herald Towers, which is a block away. Same type of design set-up.

Maybe Donald can restore it when he gets out of jail.

It's going to be replaced by PENN15!

and Steven Roth will shove it down your throat.

I was just reading the other day about how the Pennsylvania used to have a fully functioning hospital inside, a massive library and a whole host of other amenities back when it was a major hotel in the city.

Sad to see another old building come down just to be replaced by a soulless tower that only the wealthy can afford.

It became a homeless shelter. They would need to do a major renovation to ever make it a hotel again.

R1 YOU go back to Parler.

Why keep these old buildings, when we can have another one of these instead?

Glenn Miller played there, the song, Pennsylvania 6-5000, was based on the hotel's phone number.

I stayed there one night, once. With a girl I knew who had a crush on me, and I obliged her by going down on her, and vice-versa,

This was the hotel that all the people who had never been to NYC stay for the first time. They had the best photos on their website that looked nothing like the actual hotel. It has been a dilapidated horror show for at least a decade.

Hotel Transylvania

There have been more blowjobs given at Hotel Pennsylvania than1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

I'm in awe of how huge it is. I can't imagine what it would have been like to be the General Manager back in its heyday. What are there, 1000 rooms? More?

For me it's one of these buildings that define Manhattan. It us such a hulking, brooding colossus. Fascinating to think all the human drama that has played out in there. If those walls could talk...It's sad that they just tear it down.

It even has a song!

Have fond memories of this place, and will miss it.

Looked it up - 2200 rooms at opening, 1704 currently. Amazing and it's only the fourth largest in NYC.

[quote]It was a good value in a great location....It was easy to invite trade over and leave your door unlocked

Yes, I believe that was mentioned as one of its amenities in the AAA Tourbook listing.

Steve Roth of Vornado is an evil cunt and I would like him to die.

He tore down Rizzoli's. He's besties with Trumpy-dump. And he's a truly vindictive and appalling smear of shit who loves visiting pain and suffering upon his perceived inferiors.

I stayed there once back in the 80s. I just wanted to experience all the history.

Indeed r24. I just read up on him. Truly an awful person. Worse than his hero Trump? NY can sure turn out some despicable characters. Just how much money do they need? How much damage must they do until they are satisfied?

Torn down only to be replaced by yet another vertical ice cube tray.

[quote] Just how much money do they need? How much damage must they do until they are satisfied?

They want it ALL, R26. Everything.

<- Where else will the Russian kleptocrats hide their millions?

[quote] Amazed that this is not landmarked.

It weird what’s not landmarked in NYC. I thought they would landmark the old Chase Manhattan Bank building on Park Avenue, but they went and tore it down despite it being of architectural interest.

[quote]There have been more blowjobs given at Hotel Pennsylvania than1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

I wouldn't be so sure.

Honestly, I would be a lot sadder if it was the New Yorker hotel, which is much more architecturally significant. The Pennsylvania Hotel always struck me as looking like something that should be in Chicago more then NYC.

Living it up at the hotel Pennsylvania

[quote] It was a good value in a great location

The only place better was the Hotel Carter.

What about the Edison?

Rizzoli's is gone?!!!

Oh fuck. Let Manhattan sink into the ocean.

I've been by there hundreds of times and never even noticed the building. It's nothing special.

Then you're going to love the brand new square glass tower that will take its place, R36.

R35 There’s one left off Madison Square Park.

Nothing beats the fabulous Blaine Hotel.

A shithole that will not be missed. NYERS can’t get nostalgic about everything.

I don’t even live in NYC and I find this depressing. They’ll never make buildings like this again.

I know people who've stayed there in the past decade--it sounded very grim and creepy. I do recall presenting there for a professional meeting around 1990--it was no show place even then. A lot of older hotels neglected the rooms but kept the public areas looking calssy. The Palmer House in Chicago was like this. Unfortunately, soon after they finally renovated, COVID hit and it closed.

Sad to see it go. I wish the Hotel Pennsylvania would be renovated instead.

I love hotels named with the word "Hotel" in front of the name.

A terrible loss.

A 1,270-foot tower, bearing the not-at-all-phallic name of PENN15, is its likely replacement.

I put up some visiting family members there in the late 80s. It was creepy and decrepit then. A real dump.

It's been in decline since before the 80's. It was even mentioned in a New Yorker article about bedbugs infestations. A lot of foreign tourists stayed there because it was cheap. The building and location is nothing like the Waldorf Astoria as someone mentioned earlier. Anything new would be an improvement.

I went to a sex party there off Craigslist one time. The building had good structure, wide corridors, large rooms - perfect for the small group. But for me, all seemed to be bridge and tunnel married men in their 30s and 40s.It was one of the better orgies I've been to. Everyone had sex with everybody else.

I've only been in the building once on a sex date, but I'm not sure I recall a single detail other than a grim sketchiness and those weird doors, which are hard to describe.

It was awfully derelict when I was there in 2004.

[quote]What about the Edison?

Or the Times Square Motor Hotel.

This thread is a trip

R2: there was a lengthy battle to landmark it in the 2000s when Vornado first tries to redevelop it. The Landmark Commission didn't approve it. It probably was saved for awhile by the Great Recession. According to wiki, the last big renovation was 25 years ago--I've only been in the public areas---I needed to make copies of something and thankfully the business center wasn't "guests only". The main floor seemed dark and dreary--a real dump.

[quote] What about the Edison?

[quote]Or the Times Square Motor Hotel.

Don't forget us!

I'm a big fan of historic hotels -- The Palmer House in Chicago is one of my favorites.

I considered staying at the Hotel Penn only because it appeared historic. But I never booked it, and I never even dropped by for a visit even though I walked past it a number of times over several visits to NYC. Sorry I missed my opportunity.

it became a dump

Some of you on this thread might be interested in this book that came out in March about the Barbizon Hotel for woman that Plath wrote about and renamed the Amazon in the Bell Jar. It details the precarious ups and downs of a NYC hotel during the 20 and 21st century and what they had to contend with, especially bottoming out in the 1970s.

[quote]it became a dump

It was always a dump. Parked two blocks from the original Penn Station, it was a tourist hotel. The first bed that weary travelers would see. Nothing but a lowly tourist dumping ground.

[quote]the Barbizon Hotel for woman

[quote] what they had to contend with, especially bottoming out in the 1970s.

Maybe someone should have written a song about them.

The ruin porn aspect is what makes it so appealing. I am sure there are rooms unopened for decades with a mummified occupant.

Have you considered the Hotel Priscirra?

r56 Could Buffy and Hildy have stayed there?

R61 I think the Bosom Buddies living situation was more based on The Martha Washington Hotel, hence both having female names, and much lower end then the Barbizon which had many amenities.

It has a great NY exterior. But so many great NY landmarks have been destroyed why bother saving anything else? At this point they might as well tear down Rockefeller Center and the Chrysler building and build more money laundering enterprises.

It's a McKim, Meade, and White building and it is historically significant. PENN1S is just anther one of these blah glass office towers, who needs them anyways? They are symbols of Trumpism, Roth and his cronies can go to hell.

When talking about " historic" NYC hotels, who can ever forget the Hotel Carter/ Carter Hotel?

"Before being crowned Tripadvisor.com’s dirtiest hotel in America, before a corpse was found stuffed under a bed, before the wonderfully nonsensical sign “You Wanted in Times Square and Less” went up in the lobby, the seedy, one-star Hotel Carter was the Hotel Dixie."

Interesting, R47. When was that? Did the hotel have a reputation as a good place for sex parties and hookups?

I sucked Johnny Thunders dick at the Pennsylvania around '82-ish. He passed out before he came, but I think a girl in the room took over when I gave up. Hung like a horse.

R64 what building is a McKim meade and white building?

Also, how's the new Yorker doing across from the Penn? Now that is historic too.... Elvis, Ali all stayed there before they played MSG. Now owned by the moonies.

I stayed here in 2007. I was barely surviving in the music industry at the time, and I had a meeting with a major label for one of my clients. I flew the red-eye from LAX to JFK and got into the city around 6am. My meeting was at 1pm with my client and the president of the label. I tried to check in to my room, and of course it wasn't ready. I slept on a couch in the lobby until 9am, and I think they got tired of me. They woke me up and put me in a room.

This room was ATROCIOUS! It was a TWIN bed, on an old frame circa 1950. The room was probably around 100 square feet at most. The bathroom door wouldn't open all the way because it hit the end of the bed frame. So, the door was open maybe two feet, and you had to squeeze through the gap. I'm surprised I didn't get bed bugs.

I was so tired, and yet completely horrified at the state of the room. I slept until 11:30, reluctantly took a shower, met up with my client who was flown in first class, and put up in a hipster hotel in Midtown.

We take the meeting, and I decided I could not stay another hour in that horrible hotel. I took the late flight out from JFK instead of staying overnight.

My client ended up getting signed to Universal Motown, and it was the last time I would stay in a budget NYC hotel.

Looks likeSteve Roth may hit a bit of a speed bump in his development plans.

The Milford wasn't exactly a dump, but it had hosted one too many package tours when I stayed there in the late 80s. The rooms were tiny. A friend of mine at the same conference was staying at the Sheraton Center--for $10 more a night I could have stayed there which seemed like another world, with a much bigger room.

Lobby looks like a 1950's bus station.

I stayed at the Mildew Plaza. Yes, the rooms were tiny. It was the place you stayed that was affordable yet clean. I think the Ramada chain owned it for awhile.

The Milford Plaza is now the RowNYC. Looks like they did a nice job remodeling it. And the location has improved since I stayed there in the '80s. Eighth Ave. used to be kind of scary.