The Roosevelt Hotel is a former hotel at 45 East 45th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Named in honor of U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt, the hotel was developed by the New York Central Railroad and the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad and opened in 1924. The 19-story structure was designed by William Stone Post of George B. Post & Son with an Italian Renaissance Revival-style facade, as well as interiors that resembled historical American buildings. The Roosevelt Hotel is one of several large hotels developed around Grand Central Terminal as part of Terminal City. Since 2000, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has owned the structure.

The building contains setbacks to comply with the 1916 Zoning Resolution, as well as light courts above the third story on Madison Avenue. The hotel was mostly constructed above Grand Central Terminal's railroad tracks, and different structural frameworks were used in the lower and upper stories. The ground level largely contained stores, and the lobby, dining rooms, and other public rooms were one floor above ground. The third through 18th floors contained 1,025 rooms. When the Roosevelt opened, it contained several novel features, including a kennel for guests' pets, a child-care service, and an in-house doctor.

The Roosevelt Hotel opened on September 22, 1924, and was originally operated by New York United Hotels Inc., a subsidiary of the United Hotels Company. After New York United Hotels went bankrupt in 1934, Roosevelt Hotels Inc. took over the hotel. Hilton Hotels took over management of the Roosevelt in 1943, eventually acquiring full ownership of the hotel, and sold it to the Hotel Corporation of America in 1956 following an antitrust lawsuit. Realty Hotels, a holding company run by the New York Central, took over the hotel in 1964. Paul Milstein acquired the hotel in 1978 and leased the hotel to PIA the following year. PIA and Prince Faisal bin Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al Saud bought the hotel in 2000, and PIA then acquired Prince Faisal's ownership stake. The hotel closed in 2020 due to continued financial losses associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. It reopened in 2023 as a shelter for asylum seekers, in which capacity it operated for two years.

Site The Roosevelt Hotel is at 45 East 45th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It occupies an entire city block bounded by Madison Avenue to the west, 46th Street to the north, Vanderbilt Avenue to the east, and 45th Street to the south. The land lot covers about with a frontage of on either avenue and on either street. Nearby buildings include 383 Madison Avenue to the north, 245 Park Avenue to the northeast, the Helmsley Building to the east, the MetLife Building and Grand Central Terminal to the southeast, and the Yale Club of New York City Building to the southeast.

The hotel was built above Grand Central Terminal's underground railroad tracks. It was one of several structures built above the railroad tracks during the early 20th century. Other such structures included the Hotel Marguery to the north, the New York Central Building (now Helmsley Building) to the east, and the Yale Club and Biltmore Hotel to the south.

Architecture

The Roosevelt Hotel was designed by William Stone Post of the architectural firm of George B. Post & Son for its original operator, the United Hotels Company. The hotel building is 19 stories high, and there are also three basement levels. Some contemporary sources describe the hotel as being 22 stories high, although this figure includes mezzanines and the ground story. According to plans published by Architecture and Building magazine, the hotel building is tall.

Form and facade The hotel building contains setbacks to comply with the 1916 Zoning Resolution; it was one of the first major hotels in New York City to be developed after the resolution was enacted. The first three stories of the hotel occupy nearly the entire site. To the west, on the Madison Avenue elevation of the facade, there are two light courts above the third story, and there is a setback above the 18th story. To the east, on the Vanderbilt Avenue elevation, there is a light court at the center, as well as setbacks above the 11th, 15th, and 18th stories. On the 12th story, the rooms on the eastern wing contained French doors, which opened out onto roof gardens. Many of the rooms on the 16th through 18th stories also opened onto roof gardens.

When the Roosevelt opened, it was characterized as having an Italian Renaissance Revival-style exterior. The hotel has a facade of Indiana limestone with terracotta trim, while the main exterior walls are made of light colored brick. The main entrance to the hotel was placed on 45th Street, though there were additional guest entrances on 46th Street and on Vanderbilt Avenue. Near the northern end of the Vanderbilt Avenue elevation was a service entrance. The ground level contained storefronts on three sides. The lowest horizontal course of the facade is made of black Belgian marble. The walls of the first story are made of grand antique marble from southern France, framing the storefronts. One contemporary writer described the ground-level storefronts as one of the "novel and salient features" of the hotel.

Structural features The structure uses of steel. The frame could carry a total load of , and the strongest individual column in the superstructure was capable of carrying . About two-thirds of the building's foundation sits above two levels of Metro-North Railroad tracks just north of Grand Central Terminal, rather than being attached to the bedrock itself. To avoid interfering with the railroad tracks under the hotel, most of the pillars in the steel superstructure are placed high above ground. With few exceptions, the hotel building and the tracks beneath it are supported by different frameworks. The foundations of the hotel building are all constructed atop vibration-absorbing lead pads.

The first story includes several spaces designed without columns, such as the main lobby, palm court, dining room, and breakfast rooms. The second story is surrounded by large trusses, creating large clear spans above the first story; the trusses are encased within thick partitions. Each of the trusses carries up to . Typically, the space between the trusses would have been usable only as storage space. By creating door openings between the trusses' diagonals, the hotel's structural engineers were able to add a full second story between the trusses. The trusses also redistribute the loads from the upper stories, since different sets of columns are used above and below the second story. The upper chords of each truss, corresponding to the second-story ceiling, contain footings for the upper-story columns, which rise 17 stories. The upper chords are divided into sections, each of which contains footings for two columns.

On the third through 18th floors, each story contains central corridors surrounded by guestrooms. The slab-to-slab height of each story is , although the ceilings in each room are high. The superstructure is divided into square modules, each with two guestrooms, two bathrooms, and two dressing rooms. There are steel columns at each corner of each guestroom, which are hidden within partitions. The side walls of each corridor contain girders, which are also placed within partitions. The easternmost portions of each story, as well as the exterior wall on Vanderbilt Avenue, are cantilevered past the outermost set of columns. There are additional girders just below each of the upper-story setbacks; these girders support the columns above the setbacks.

Mechanical features Near the center of the hotel were six passenger elevators, five service elevators, and one freight elevator. Garbage and laundry chutes were placed next to the service elevators. The Roosevelt Hotel produced much of its own steam, in contrast to other buildings in the area, which purchased steam from the New York Central Railroad because they did not have space for mechanical equipment. The Roosevelt purchased high-pressure steam from the railroad, but the hotel generated its own low-pressure steam using exhaust from engine generators, compressors, and auxiliaries.

On the second floor, there was a telephone exchange with 75 trunk lines and a telephone switchboard with 98 lines. The Roosevelt originally contained teletype machines, which at the time of the hotel's opening were a novelty. When the hotel opened, its telephone booths were directly connected to the ventilation system; before air conditioning became popular, the ventilation system provided cool air to the booths during the summer.

Interior The Roosevelt Hotel's interior was described as being in an "early American" style. Many of the public rooms were intended to resemble 18th- and 19th-century buildings in the former Thirteen Colonies. For instance, the hotel included replicas of decorative details from 18th- and 19th-century mansions, such as Homewood in Baltimore, Maryland; the Octagon House in Washington, D.C.; Gordon House in Savannah, Georgia; and Gibbs House in Charleston, South Carolina. The early American style was also chosen for practical reasons, as it was cheaper than any other architectural style, especially given the high costs of developing the hotel above the railroad tracks. Unlike most buildings in the U.S., the first floor was one story above the ground floor.

The Roosevelt had of meeting and exhibit space, including two ballrooms and 17 additional meeting rooms ranging in size from . It had a business center, a concierge, fitness center, safety deposit boxes, valet laundry, valet or self-parking, and 15 retail tenants. The hotel originally had about , of which 69 percent was revenue-producing space such as storefronts, restaurants, and guestrooms. Some of the Roosevelt's "utility spaces" (such as the beauty parlor, barber shop, and the Victorian-style Turkish baths) were placed above ground, rather than in the basement, as was common in older hotels. Members of the public could visit the lobby even if they were not guests of the hotel, and the lobby became a popular tourist attraction.

Basements

The hotel had three basements, which were excavated out of the underlying bedrock. Due to the presence of the railroad tracks, the basement levels cover only the western portion of the site; each basement level covered approximately . The lowest level was the third basement, which contained a heating plant, engine room, fan room, and guest laundry. The second basement contained a staff bakery, ice-making machines, and various storage rooms for housekeeping. There was also a garbage-sorting room and an incineration room in the second basement. The first basement included storage space for the ground-level storefronts, in addition to a kitchen, cafeteria, locker room, and service facilities for the hotel's staff. There were separate dining rooms for male staff, female staff, and the second officers (who helped manage the hotel) on the first basement level.

The first basement formerly contained a passageway leading directly to Grand Central Terminal. This passageway also connected the hotel to the New York City Subway's Grand Central–42nd Street station via the terminal's corridors. Additional passageways connected with other buildings such as the Biltmore and Commodore hotels, the Yale Club Building, the Graybar Building, and the Chrysler Building. The entrance to the passageway was from the first story, next to the elevators. The corridor was closed by the late 20th century, and the gate between the hotel and Grand Central Terminal was permanently locked by the beginning of the 21st century. A clothing store moved into the space formerly occupied by the passageway's entrance in 2008, and the corridor was sealed off around 2014.

Ground story