Look to your left and you will spot the Roosevelt Hotel, a massive nineteen-story block of light brick and Indiana limestone rising into a series of distinct stepped-back rooflines that give it an elegant, tiered shape.
Opened in September nineteen twenty-four, this grand building was named in honor of U-S President Theodore Roosevelt, who had passed away a few years prior. It cost twelve million dollars to build, which is roughly one hundred and ninety-five million dollars today. Now, remember how we talked about buildings sitting right over the train tracks? Well, about two-thirds of the Roosevelt is perched directly over two levels of subterranean tracks. To keep guests from bouncing out of their beds every time a train rolled by, engineers built the hotel's foundations on thick, vibration-absorbing lead pads. Talk about a solid night's sleep.
When it first opened its doors, the Roosevelt was the height of modern luxury and had some pretty wild features for its time. It boasted an in-house doctor, a childcare service that included a play area called the Teddy Bear Cave, and get this, a dog kennel on the roof. It was the very first hotel in New York City to offer a place for your pampered pooch to stay while you lived it up downstairs. They even pumped cool air from the ventilation system directly into the telephone booths so you wouldn't sweat while making a call.
And oh, did people live it up here. The Roosevelt Grill, the hotel's famous dining room, was the winter home of bandleader Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians. Starting in nineteen twenty-nine, they broadcast their New Year's Eve performances live on the radio from that very room. If you have ever belted out the song Auld Lang Syne at the stroke of midnight, you have the Roosevelt Hotel and Guy Lombardo to thank for popularizing that tradition.
The hotel also had a heavy political footprint. In the mid-twentieth century, the Republican Party loved this place. New York Governor Thomas E Dewey practically lived here. During the nineteen forty-eight presidential election, he, his family, and his staff huddled in a fifteenth-floor suite listening to the election returns. Spoiler alert for history buffs: despite the infamous newspaper headline claiming Dewey defeats Truman, things did not go Dewey's way that night.
You might also recognize the grand interiors from the big screen. The ballroom was used in the nineteen eighty-seven movie Wall Street, and the hotel served as a backdrop for shows like Mad Men and movies like Maid in Manhattan.
In recent decades, the building took a completely different path. After a long period of ownership by Pakistan International Airlines, or P-I-A, the hotel closed its doors to guests in late twenty twenty due to financial losses. Then, in twenty twenty-three, it found a new, unexpected purpose, reopening its doors as a massive processing center and shelter for asylum seekers arriving in the city, earning it the nickname of the new Ellis Island.
It is technically open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, though its days of hosting grand galas and rooftop dog kennels are behind it for now. Take a moment to admire those elegant setbacks. When you're ready, we can move along.
