Nov 1, 2023
The Knickerbocker Hotel (then used as an office building), on the SE corner of Broadway and 42nd Street, 1921.
Built by John Jacob Astor, it was once home to Enrico Caruso and George M. Cohan. Other residents and guests included Geraldine Farrar, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and D.W. Griffith. Tammany Hall politicians used to hold political meetings there. The popular hotel bar was called "The 42nd Street Country Club" and the restaurant was allegedly where the velvet rope line was invented.
The hotel opened in 1901 and flourished, but it was hit hard by Prohibition and was repurposed as an office building in 1920. It reopened as a hotel in 2015.
Photo: Bettmann Archive/NY Daily News
