Hotel Sterling

Hotel Sterling is a closed hotel in downtown Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania at the intersection of River Street and Market Street. It was built in 1897 by Walter Sterling, at the site of the Wilkes-Barre Music Hall. Sterling had to build the hotel as it is today because of a lack of funds. He sold the hotel in the early 1920s to a Homer Mallow, then the name was changed to Hotel Mallow Sterling. In 1925 the plaza hotel opened behind the sterling as the tallest building in Wilkes-Barre. In 1936 Andrew Sordoni of Commonwealth Telephone bought the Hotel Sterling and the Plaza and connected the two. The hotel later became part of the Sterling Hotel System. Until 2002 the hotel lay abandoned suffering a fire in 2000. City- vest a non-profit group bought the building and tore down the tower (Hotel Plaza) in 2006.