George Washington Hotel

The George Washington Hotel was a hotel and boarding house located at 23 Lexington Avenue in Manhattan, NY. The building was occupied by many famous writers, musicians, and poets including W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood who lived there in the 1930s.

In the late 1960s, Minoru Yamasaki and a team of architects drafted the early plans for the World Trade Center in a suite at the George Washington, and the 1990s Dee Dee Ramone occupied a room there.

The George Washington Hotel in New York City's" Gramercy Park District" was opened in 1928. In 1939 the poet W. H. Auden stayed at this hotel, calling it "much the nicest hotel in town", another famous resident was writer Christopher Isherwood. For a period of time the building was closed and possible destruction of the building was prevented via the local historical society. The hotel was re-opened with space purchased by not-for-profit Educational Housing Services ( [http://www.studenthousing.org] ) in the mid-90s during the city's rebirth. All of the space is currently under lease through the School of Visual Arts except for a few apartments still occupied by non-student original tenants. These tenants live in the building and pay monthly rent at low rates, as they are still protected under NYC single room rent laws for permanent occupant evictions or rent increase. ( [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE6DA1F3EF934A15751C1A96E948260 article] ) The history of the George Washington Hotel involves at one time being a brothel and once a bootlegging house during Prohibition. During the 1980s, the hotel received several instances of police activity, which in all fairness was common for B-Class hotels during this era. Two of these instances can be viewed via NY TIMES archives. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9501E7DA1039F93AA15750C0A965948260 1] [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9501E7DA1039F93AA15750C0A965948260 2]