Hendrik Hudson Hotel

Hendrik Hudson Hotel was a prospective eighteen story New York City edifice. It was conceived in 1897 by a syndicate of capitalists from England and the United States. It was to occupy a site on Riverside Drive (New York), overlooking the New Jersey Palisades. The building's planners used the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel as a model. It was budgeted to cost $4,000,000. The establishment took its name from a United States military leader who fought against British and Hessian (soldiers), in the American Revolutionary War. ["Legends Of The Sinnipink", New York Times, August 19, 1894, pg. 20.]

Architectural plans and building interior

Eugene Kirby, a former manager of the Marie Antoinette Hotel, was selected to supervise the construction of the Hendrik Hudson Hotel. A plot of ground measuring two hundred to two hundred fifty feet was selected and obtained for the site on Riverside Drive. The first floor was envisioned to contain an office,a smoking room, reception room, ladies' billiard room, and a parlor. A balcony restaurant and private dining rooms were planned for the second floor. Seven hundred and fifty rooms, divided into suites, would occupy the remaining floors. The establishment would have catered to a clientele primarily of families instead of a transient trade, because of its Uptown, Manhattan location. Additional features envisioned were a banquet hall, planned to seat one thousand people, and a splendorous roof garden.

Ingenious transportation

A steam yacht docked near the hotel was a unique idea of the hotel's conceivers. It would have made frequent trips to the lower portion of New York City for businessmen as well as guests who desired to go shopping. "Tally ho" coaches were considered for transporting people staying at the hotel tocity suburbs, when the weather was favorable. A market garden in New Jersey was imagined to raise necessarysupplies for the business. ["Hotel On Riverside Drive", New York Times, October 22, 1897, pg. 12.]

Hendrik Hudson namesake

The steamboat Hendrik Hudson, which journeyed from New York City to London, England ["Marine Intelligence", New York Times, March 9, 1855, pg. 8.] and Albany, New York, sailed during the 1850s and 1860s. ["Navigation On The Hudson", New York Times, pg. 8.] A room at the Hotel Roosevelt was named Hendrik Hudson. Fan dancer Sally Rand gave a speech there entitled "How I Sold Sally Rand", in February 1935. ["Sally Rand", The Washington Post, February 17, 1935, pg. B2.] A hotel named Hendrik Hudson was built in Troy, New York. ["Tiernan Rites Held", Washington Post, October 26, 1946, pg. 2.] Long vacant, it was being used for officespace and commercial ventures by the late 1980s. ["The Collar City Is Loosening Its Ties to the Past", New York Times, January 22, 1989, pg. 36.]

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