Fifth Avenue Hotel

:"For the building called by this name in Omaha, Nebraska, see Ford Hospital."Infobox building
building_name = Fifth Avenue Hotel
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caption = An 1860 depiction of the hotel.
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address = 200 Fifth Avenue
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owner = Amos R. Eno
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start_date = 1856
completion_date = 1859
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demolition_date = 1908
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architect = Griffith Thomas with William Washburn
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The Fifth Avenue Hotel was a hotel located at 200 Fifth Avenue in New York City, New York. It formerly occupied the full Fifth Avenue frontage between 23rd Street and 24th Street, at the southwest corner of Madison Square in the borough of Manhattan.

History

The Fifth Avenue Hotel was built in 1856–59 for Amos R. Eno, to designs of Griffith Thomas with William Washburn. It replaced the frame structure with an eighteenth-century core [The farmhouse of John Horn, from which the Bloomingdale Road took its start, was shifted from its position in the middle of the surveyed but unbuilt Fifth Avenue in November 1839. (Frank Bergen Kelley, Edward Hagaman, (City History Club of New york) "Historical Guide to the City of New York" 1909:112).] once called "Madison House" that had served as a stagecoach stop for passengers headed north from the city, but which had more recently been replaced by Franconi's tentlike Hippodrome. [Rufus Rockwell Wilson, "New York: Old & New: Its Story, Streets, and Landmarks," 1902:242. "This huge arena seated about six thousand people with room for three thousand standees. The structure was rather an immense tent than a building. Pageants with elephants and camels, chariot races, and gladiatorial contests in keeping with the Roman name were staged there for two seasons, but the enterprise was not a financial success." (Jerry E. Patterson, "Fifth Avenue: The Best Address" 1998.] At the time of its construction it stood so far uptown from the centers of city life [For comparison, Fifth Avenue's first hotel, the stylish Brevoort Hotel, opened just eight years earlier (1851), stood on the northeast corner at "Eighth Street".] it was dubbed "Eno's Folly; New York bankers refused to capitalize the project, and Eno turned to Boston for funding. It quickly developed a reputation as New York's most elegant hotel, brought in a quarter of a million dollars a year in profits, [Miller 2001:47] and spurred development of additional hotels to the north and west: [ [http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/reports/wilbraham.pdf Landmarks Preservation Commission designation summary for The Wilbraham, 8 June 2004] ,] the Fifth Avenue Hotel "became the social, cultural political hub of elite New York." [Miller 2001:47]

Design

The Fifth Avenue Hotel was of brick faced with white marble, of five storeys. The first example of Otis Tufts' "vertical screw railway" the first passenger elevator installed in a hotel in the United States, [Patented 9 August 1859. As late as 1908 a tablet in one of the hotel's elevators recorded its former site. The unwieldy elevator was replaced by Tufts' rope elevator in 1879, according to William Shepard Walsh, "A Handy Book of Curious Information", 1913:334.] a notable but cumbersome feature powered by a stationary steam engine, carried passengers to the upper floors by a revolving screw. [Spencer Klaw, “'All safe, Gentlemen, all safe!' The ups and downs of the invention that forever altered the American skyline" " American Heritage", 29.5 (August/September 1978: [http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1978/5/1978_5_40.shtml on-line text] ).]

The hotel had a plain tin cornice, but its sober exterior contained richly appointed public rooms: "Harper's Weekly" reviewed its "heavy masses of gilt wood, rich crimson or green curtains, extremely handsome rose-wood and brocatelle suits, [Suites of rosewood furniture with brocatelle marble tops are intended.] rich carpets... the whole presenting about as handsome and as comfortless an appearance as any one need wish for." [Quoted in Char Miller, "Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism" 2001:47] From the Hotel's instant success, it was not comfort New Yorkers were seeking, it was grandeur.

Notable usage

Abraham Lincoln was staying at the Fifth Avenue Hotel when he went to make the address at Cooper Union that launched him towards the presidency. President Ulysses S. Grant's campaign began at a dinner party in the hotel, and he and his cabinet once held an official session there. The celebrity lawyer Chester A. Arthur, also later president, kept a suite for his office; [Zachary Karabell, "Chester Alan Arthur" 2004:35.] Edward, Prince of Wales, stayed here on his North American tour, as did his brother-in-law the Duke of Argyll, Dom Pedro of Brazil and Prince Agustín de Iturbide y Green of Mexico, Maximilian's adopted son. [Wilson 1902:243] "It was a gathering place for fat cats like Boss Tweed, Jay Gould, Jim Fisk and Commodore Vanderbilt, who would would trade stocks here after hours." [ [http://home.nyc.rr.com/jkn/nysonglines/5av.htm#23st "Fifth Avenue"] ;] When the superbly confident young Jim Fisk first arrived in New York, he stayed at the Fifth Avenue hotel until he was temporarily ruined. [Edward J. Renehan, Jr., "Dark Genius of Wall Street" 2006:110.] Gore Vidal made the Fifth Avenue Hotel a setting in his novel "1876", for it was in a suite here that John C. Reid, editor of "The New York Times" woke the Republican National Committee chairman Zachariah Chandler, and worked out the campaign that stole the Presidential election of 1876.

From a corner nook in one of the public rooms, which he dubbed his "amen corner" Republican political boss Thomas Collier Platt controlled patronage in New York City and State for a few years in the 1890s; projects did not go forward until they had his "amen". [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A04E0DC1530F93AA25751C1A9629C8B63 Michael Miscione , "The Fifth Avenue Hotel", 18 December 2004] .]

Demolition

The Fifth Avenue Hotel closed at midnight, 4 April 1908 [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9502E7DD143EE233A25757C0A9629C946997D6CF "Fifth Avenue Hotel Closes at Midnight", "New York Times", 4 April 1908] : "Odell and Platt Will Greet Their Friends in the "Amen Corner" To-day for the Last Time. Employes Say Good-bye; Bids from All Over the Country Received for Fittings with Historic Associations". Accessed 28 August 2008.] and was demolished.

Its site was occupied in 1909 by the present office building designed by Robert Maynicke and Julius Franke, [ [http://nyc.everyblock.com/landmark-building-permits/by-date/2007/12/19/696449/ Landmark permit, December 19, 2007] ] until 2007 housing the International Toy Center, [ [http://www.thetoycenter.com/about/ITC_History.html International Toy Center] .] that was filled with wholesale buyers in the February Toy Fair [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D01E0DD1738F935A15757C0A967948260 Michael Specter, "Not all fun and games at the 5th. Ave. toy center," "The New York Times", April 26, 1981] ] and October. Its resounding name was taken up by a Fifth Avenue Hotel at 24 Fifth Avenue, a grid of windows in a brick facade, by Emery Roth, since converted to apartments. [ [http://www.nycjpg.com/2003/pages/0722.html NYCJPG: Fifth Avenue Hotel] ]

References and notes