Row NYC Hotel is a hotel at 700 Eighth Avenue, between 44th and 45th Streets, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The hotel is 27 stories tall with 1,331 rooms. Designed by Schwartz & Gross, with Herbert J. Krapp as consulting architect, it was developed by brothers Henry and Irwin Chanin and opened on February 1, 1928, as the Hotel Lincoln. The hotel largely retains its original brick-and-terracotta facade. The interior spaces, which originally included a lobby and various restaurants on the first three stories, have been redesigned substantially over the years.
The Chanin brothers had acquired the site in May 1925 and developed it along with the neighboring John Golden, Bernard B. Jacobs, and Majestic theaters. The Chanins resold the hotel in 1927 to Irving I. Lewine and the United Cigar Stores Company, but the brothers continued to lease the hotel until 1931, when United Cigars acquired their lease. Maria Kramer bought the hotel in 1938 before reselling it in 1956 to Webb and Knapp, operated by real estate developer William Zeckendorf, which extensively renovated the hotel and renamed it the Hotel Manhattan. British firm Grand Metropolitan Inc. bought the hotel in 1969, and it operated as the Royal Manhattan until it was closed in 1974. The Milstein family purchased the hotel in 1978, and it reopened in 1980 as the Milford Plaza Hotel. Rockpoint Group and hotel operator Highgate Holdings bought the hotel in 2011 and renamed it the Row NYC in 2014. Following an influx of asylum seekers to New York City, the hotel began housing asylum seekers in 2023. The hotel reopened to guests in May 2026.
Site The Row NYC Hotel is on 700 Eighth Avenue, on the eastern sidewalk between 44th and 45th Streets, in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. The land lot is rectangular and covers , with a frontage of approximately on Eighth Avenue and on either side street. The Row NYC adjoins seven Broadway theaters clockwise from north: the John Golden, Bernard B. Jacobs, Gerald Schoenfeld, Booth, Shubert, Broadhurst, and Majestic. Other nearby structures include the Al Hirschfeld Theatre to the west, Music Box Theatre and Imperial Theatre to the northeast, and the Hayes Theater and the St. James Theatre to the southeast.
The surrounding area is part of the largest concentration of Broadway theaters on a single block. The adjacent block of 45th Street is also known as George Abbott Way, and foot traffic on the street increases box-office totals for the theaters there. The hotel is also approximately west of Shubert Alley, which separates the seven adjacent theaters from One Astor Plaza and the Minskoff Theatre. The Majestic, Masque (Golden), and Royale (Jacobs) theaters and the Lincoln Hotel (Row NYC Hotel) had all been developed concurrently. The site of all four buildings had previously been occupied by twenty brownstone residences. The site was part of the Astor family estate from 1803 to 1922, when it was sold to Henry Claman. The plots collectively measured wide along Eighth Avenue, along 44th Street, and along 45th Street.
Architecture The Lincoln Hotel was designed by Schwartz & Gross, with Herbert J. Krapp as consulting architect. It was constructed by the Chanin Construction Company, headed by Irwin Chanin. The hotel is 27 stories high, although it was originally described as being 30 stories high. Its facade was variously described as being designed in the Byzantine or Italianate style. The ground floor is clad in rusticated blocks of terracotta, and the upper stories contain gold-colored, bonded Roman brick. The brick facade was designed to relate to the adjacent theaters. In contrast to the neighboring theaters, the Row NYC's facade is sparsely detailed.
Public rooms
Lobby and restaurants The hotel's public rooms were originally designed in a red, green, and blue color scheme, with carvings and chandeliers that evoked the designs of skyscrapers. There was originally of commercial space, consisting of 16 showrooms and storefronts. The first story contained the lobby, shops, and restaurants. Irwin Chanin had planned to furnish the lobby in the Louis XIV style, but Chanin changed his plans because he believed that the flappers of the 1920s would look out of place in the hotel. At the 45th Street end of the lobby was a lounge with a red, blue, green, and silver ceiling, adjacent to which was a library with 3,000 volumes. The restaurants consisted of a 50-seat basement café, a 250-seat grill room, and a 400-seat main dining room. The grill room had wooden beams on its ceiling and was designed in an English style. The second floor was supposed to be a ballroom and banking hall; as built, it had a lounge and two private dining rooms. In addition, there were offices on the second story.
In the 1950s, the first three stories were gutted to make way for a triple-height lobby. The main section of the lobby included a marble registration desk on the second floor, accessed by escalators from the ground floor. Seven blocks of imported marble were installed inside the lobby. When the hotel was rebuilt in 1957, there was a main ballroom capable of accommodating 500 guests, as well as a lower-lobby ballroom with space for 200 guests. In addition, the lobby adjoined three restaurants: a luxury restaurant called the Playbill, a bar called the Manhattan Bar, and a cafe. Jac Lessman designed these dining rooms. In 1980, the hotel's main entrance was relocated to 45th Street to cater to people visiting Broadway theaters nearby. The reopened hotel included two lounges and a "brasserie-style" restaurant; these spaces were named after Broadway theaters.
The design of the Row NYC's lobby dates to a 2014 renovation by Gabellini Sheppard Associates. As part of the renovation, the lobby was converted into a space, and an illuminated staircase was placed in the lobby. Local artist Yorgo Alexopoulos designed two light sculptures, one on either side of the reception area. The lobby also includes a restaurant called District M.
Basements The hotel was also to contain three basement levels. Part of one basement level was to contain an entrance to the New York City Subway's 42nd Street station, while the two other basement levels were supposed to contain a bus terminal. As built, the hotel had four basements, which housed the mechanical equipment, including a laundry plant that could wash more than 10,000 people's clothes per day.
Guestrooms When it was planned, the Lincoln Hotel had 1,400 rooms on its upper stories, each with its own bathroom. When the hotel opened, guests could rent radios; signals were transmitted to each room using the girders of the hotel's steel frame, rather than using wires. After the Lincoln was rebuilt as the Manhattan Hotel in 1957, Lessman redecorated the rooms in either blue, green, gray, or gold. Each room was also outfitted with a television and a radio.
Following another renovation in 1980, the Milford Plaza Hotel had 1,310 rooms, which were decorated in black and burgundy. The rooms were designed by Marilynn Motto, with lighting by Howard Brandston. As late as the 1980s, the guestrooms did not have fire-safety systems such as sprinklers. In the 2010s, Gensler and Gabellini Sheppard redecorated the rooms, expanding the hotel to 1,331 rooms. The hotel also included a Penthouse Paparazzi suite, which covered and was marketed for $2,520 per night when the Row NYC was renovated in 2014.
History Irwin Chanin was an American architect and real estate developer who designed several Art Deco towers and Broadway theaters. He and his brother Henry designed their first Manhattan buildings in 1924, including the Chanin Building. They then built and operated a number of theaters and other structures related to the entertainment industry, including the Roxy Theatre. By October 1926, the Chanins had decided to construct and operate a theatrical franchise "in New York and half a dozen other large cities in the United States".
Development The Chanin brothers had acquired the Claman site in May 1925. The Chanins planned to build a 20-story hotel on Eighth Avenue and three theaters on the side streets. In March 1926, Krapp filed plans with the New York City Department of Buildings for the hotel and theaters, which were projected to cost $4.5 million. The total site, including land, was expected to cost $10 million. The brownstones on the site were razed starting in May, and the site was cleared by the next month. That July, the Chanin brothers received a $7.5 million loan for the four developments from S. W. Straus & Co. The three theaters were all named in December 1926; from largest to smallest, they were the Majestic, Royale, and Masque. The Chanins announced the same month that the hotel was to be known as the Lincoln. The brothers were also attempting to sell the hotel and lease it back for 21 years.
Excavation for the Hotel Lincoln began on August 7, 1926, and the hotel's foundation was constructed starting on November 1, 1926. Krapp's original plans had called for a Spanish-style design, but Irwin Chanin subsequently hired Schwartz & Gross to redesign the hotel. Chanin, an engineer by trade, was heavily involved in the hotel's design process, creating sketches of furniture that he wanted. Workers began erecting the steel frame on February 15, 1927. The hotel was topped out on May 17, 1927, when Irwin and Henry Chanin drilled two golden rivets at the top of the hotel's steel frame. The structure had taken only ten months to erect. The Chanin brothers resold the hotel in June 1927 to Irving I. Lewine and the United Cigar Stores Company. The Chanin brothers leased back the hotel for 63 years, except for the storefront at the corner of Eighth Avenue and 45th Street. The New York Times reported at the time that real estate values on Eighth Avenue between 42nd Street and Columbus Circle had increased by 200 percent over the preceding decade. The hotel's owners rented out three storefronts in August 1927. Later that year, additional storefronts were rented out to a shirt store and a barber shop.
In January 1928, eighty-one truckloads of furniture were delivered to the site, and the owners announced the hotel's opening date. James T. Clyde was hired as the Lincoln's first managing director that month, operating the hotel on behalf of the Chanin brothers. Upon its completion, the Lincoln was the tallest residential building around Times Square, as well as the tallest hotel in Manhattan west of Broadway. The hotel informally opened on January 31, 1928, when it started offering meal service to guests. The first recorded guest was a businessman from Houston, Texas. Governor Al Smith and mayor Jimmy Walker both sent the Chanins congratulatory telegrams after the Lincoln opened. The hotel's formal opening ceremony took place on February 13, 1928, coinciding with the observance of the Lincoln's Birthday holiday. At the official opening ceremony, a portrait of Lincoln was dedicated in the hotel's lobby, and Smith pressed a button at his Albany office to illuminate the hotel's rooftop sign.
Early years
Cigar Stores ownership
Irwin Chanin initially rented out rooms for $3 to $5 per night. The Eighth Avenue Association gave the Chanin brothers a plaque in March 1928 to celebrate the hotel's completion. That October, radio station WGBS opened an auxiliary studio atop the Hotel Lincoln. The Cigar Stores Realty Company bought the Hotel Lincoln in January 1929 as part of a $25 million purchase of multiple properties. The following month, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company lent $3.8 million to the Lincoln's owners. Among the hotel's early events were meetings of the Theatrical Stock Managers' Association; meetings for John F. Hylan's 1929 mayoral campaign; and awards ceremonies for farmers. In addition, one of the storefronts was leased as a drugstore in 1930.