The Hotel St. George is a building in Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn, New York City. Built in sections between 1885 and 1930, the hotel was once the city's largest hotel, with 2,632 rooms at its peak. The hotel occupies the city block bounded by Pineapple Street, Henry Street, Clark Street, and Hicks Street.
The building complex consisted of eight attached structures, surrounding a courtyard, prior to a 1995 fire that destroyed two of the buildings. It is located atop the New York City Subway's Clark Street station, whose sole entrance is through the hotel's ground story. The hotel once had various amenities such as a saltwater swimming pool, a ballroom, and numerous restaurants.
The hotel, originally operated by Union Navy captain William Tumbridge, was designed by Augustus Hatfield as a 10-story structure and was expanded over the years. Tumbridge hired Montrose Morris to design two additions in 1898 and 1913. After Tumbridge died in 1921, his son sold the hotel to Bing & Bing, which hired Emery Roth to design additional expansions in 1924 and 1928. The hotel was completed on March 21, 1930, and became a popular venue for events and military personnel over the next three decades.
The St. George's patronage began to decline in 1950, with long-term residents making up the majority of the clientele. The hotel was sold three times during the 1960s and was mostly vacant by the early 1970s. Four of the hotel's eight buildings were renovated and converted to apartments between 1978 and 1984. The building survived a large 1995 fire and has been used as student dormitories since the late 1990s.
Description
The Hotel St. George is located at 111 Hicks Street (also known as 44 Pineapple Street). It has 30 floors and 275 units, covers a lot area of , and has a gross floor area of . The hotel occupies the entire city block between Pineapple Street to the north, Henry Street to the east, Clark Street to the south, and Hicks Street to the west. Prior to the 1995 fire that gutted the Hotel St. George, the building complex consisted of eight attached structures, surrounding a courtyard. These consisted of the Clark, Grill, Tower, Crosshall, Pineapple, Weller, and Marquee buildings, as well as the hotel itself at the eastern end of the block.
Buildings The 10-story Grill Building was at the southwestern corner of the block. The Grill Building measured on Hicks Street and on Clark Street. The Tower Building, a 31-story or 32-story building on the northwestern corner of the block at 111 Hicks Street, measured on Hicks Street and on Pineapple Street. Built in 1929 as a steel-frame structure, the Tower Building connected to the Grill Building in its basement. The portion of the Tower Building on Pineapple Street was originally a separate structure known as the St. George Apartments. The tower was topped by a 480-million-candlepower beacon that could be seen from away before being deactivated in 1931. By the 1990s, the original Tower building, the old St. George Apartments, and the Grill Building had all been combined into one residential building known as the Tower Building.
East of the Tower Building were the six-story Crosshall Building and the eight-story Pineapple Building. The Crosshall Building had a frontage on Pineapple Street, while the Pineapple Building was located at 60 Pineapple Street and had a frontage; both buildings were deep. The easternmost of the block was the "St. George Hotel Building", the only operating portion of the hotel by the 1990s. The structure had a frontage of over on Henry Street, extending the entire block between Pineapple and Clark Streets; it rose eight stories on Pineapple Street and twelve stories on Clark Street. The hotel had entrances from Clark and Henry Streets, and the New York City Subway's Clark Street station was accessed from the lobby.
On Clark Street were three structures. Just west of the St. George Hotel were the Weller and Marquee buildings, respectively; both measured wide and deep. The Weller Building was four stories tall, while the Marquee Building was twelve stories tall; fire doors separated the Weller and Marquee buildings. To the west of the Marquee Building was the Clark Building, a 10-story building, was located at 51 Clark Street with a frontage of and a depth of . At one time, the Grill and Clark buildings had been connected at each floor level with overhead rolling fire doors at the openings, but the doorways were sealed on the Grill Building side when the Clark Building closed. A one-story covered courtyard was located near the western end of the middle of the block. The Clark Building was destroyed in a fire in 1995.
Features In its heyday, the hotel had 2,632 guest rooms, one thousand full-time employees, could accommodate nearly three thousand people for a dance, and could provide food for seven thousand guests at any one time.
Amenities The hotel had various amenities including hot rooms, a billiards room, a card room, a library, a gym, and a roof garden. In the basement of the St. George Tower was a natatorium, which contained a saltwater swimming pool with saunas, steam rooms, and locker rooms. The pool was cited as measuring either ; ; or . The natatorium was designed by Willy Pogany and contained underwater lights; walls with gold mirrors; columns with gold-and-green tiles; and a balcony with white-on-black reliefs. The balcony surrounding the pool could accommodate 2,000 spectators. Builders excavated six wells to a depth of , which could supply water to the pool at a rate of ; the saltwater from the wells had a quarter of the salinity of ocean water. At the time of the pool's construction, the natatorium was the only part of the hotel that received power from the New York City electrical grid; the rest of the hotel generated its own power.
The other spaces were designed by Winold Reiss in the Art Deco style. Among these was a triple-height ballroom without columns, known as the Colorama Ballroom. The ballroom measured and had a ceiling measuring either or high. The ballroom had a black floor, white walls, a white ceiling, and multicolored reflectors operated by a "color organ"; the illuminated reflectors provided all of the room's decoration. Four double trusses, each weighing , supported the weight of the tower above the ballroom.
Upper stories The easternmost wing of the hotel (the St. George Hotel Building) was designed in 1924 by Emery Roth and included about 370 rooms. This portion of the hotel was built above a storefront whose owners still held a lease on the site, as well as the entrance to the Clark Street subway station; as a result, the easternmost wing was built with large girders, carrying it above the New York City Subway's Clark Street station and a store. Elevators, stairways, and mechanical systems were placed in an adjacent eight-story laundry building and attached to the easternmost wing. The laundry building was converted into loft apartments with large windows and high ceilings.
The St. George Tower, at the northwestern corner, had 1,200 rooms and was intended as a "club residence for men and women". The apartments were intended for young professionals with low incomes. Some floors were occupied exclusively by men, while others only had women as residents. Each apartment contained little more than a closet and a sink, and all of the floors had shared restrooms with showers, bathtubs, and toilets. After an expansion in 1930, the hotel had two radio receivers, which were connected to a system of 37 loudspeakers installed throughout the hotel.
Since 1984, the Tower, Grill, Crosshall, and Pineapple buildings have contained luxury apartments. Most of the rental apartments are studios, which range from , and one-bedroom units, which range from . Some of the rental units are two-bedroom apartments with up to . There were originally 73 apartments in the Crosshall and Pineapple buildings and 301 apartments in the Tower and Grill buildings. By the late 1990s, some of the apartments had been combined.
History
Early history Prior to the construction of the current Hotel St. George, the site had contained a tavern called the St. George, which operated from the mid-1770s to 1783.
1880s and 1890s The current hotel was established in either 1884 or 1885 by William Tumbridge, a South African–born Union Navy captain. Tumbridge funded the hotel's construction using earnings from the financial industry. The original portion was designed by Augustus Hatfield as a 10-story structure; it was clad with red brick and contained 130 guestrooms. The hotel was ornate for its time; there were bowling alleys and Turkish baths, as well as an air-cooling system and dedicated electrical generators. In addition, the St. George had an elaborate lobby with mosaics, marble, and Tiffany glass, in addition to restaurants.
The hotel's success led Tumbridge to build a 360-room annex on Clark Street in 1886. In January 1887, the Hotel St. George announced plans for a five-story annex facing Hicks Street near Clark Street. Over the years, Tumbridge expanded the hotel along Pineapple Street. A 210-room annex on Pineapple Street was completed in 1891, bringing the hotel to 800 guestrooms.
In 1898, Tumbridge hired Montrose Morris to design a ten-story annex along Clark Street with a rooftop terrace and flagpoles. At the time, the building had 780 guestrooms and a ballroom that could fit 750 people, although Tumbridge had been forced to turn away guests the preceding years. The renovations, costing an estimated $200,000, would increase the capacity to 1,000 guestrooms.
1900s and 1910s By the 1900s, the St. George accommodated both long-term residents and short-term visitors. Among the long-term residents were NAACP founder Mary White Ovington, who lived there in 1905. After workers discovered gold while cleaning an artesian well near the center of the hotel's site in 1906, gold miners flocked to the area.
In June 1913, Morris filed plans for an eight-story addition at Pineapple and Henry Streets, which was to contain 200 rooms. The annex, replacing three old houses, would cost $100,000 and was expected to increase the hotel's capacity to over 2,000 guestrooms. Three elevators, leading to the Interborough Rapid Transit Company's Clark Street station just beneath the hotel, were installed at the St. George's ground story in 1919. Tumbridge continued to operate the hotel until he died in 1921. Afterward, his son John William Tumbridge decided to sell the hotel.
1920s expansion The firm of Bing & Bing bought the hotel in November 1922, at which point the St. George was valued at $3 million. The firm planned to erect a 400-room annex of up to 15 stories. S. W. Straus lent Bing & Bing $2.75 million in August 1923 to construct the expansion. Bing & Bing hired Emery Roth in 1924 to design a 12-story Italian Renaissance-style annex at the corner of Clark and Henry Street. The 400-room annex expanded the hotel's capacity to 1,200 rooms, making it the fourth-largest hotel in the New York metropolitan area. The lobbies and parlors were renovated, and the interior of the original building was redecorated. The expansion on Henry Street opened on January 19, 1925.