Dream Hotel Midtown (New York City, New York)

 hotel, high-rise, 1904_construction, Beaux-Arts (architecture)

171-foot, 13-story Beaux-Arts hotel completed in 1904 with 12 floors. Designed by George F. Pelham for Nathan E. Clark, it opened as The Woodward Hotel. In 1936 the Woodward, like many others in the Depression, was sold in foreclosure, and had several different owners over the next few decades. In 2002 the Woodward finally lost its name. It became the Majestic for a time and later the Dream Hotel in 2004.

It is clad in red brick and limestone above a 3-story, rusticated limestone base (painted light-tan at the ground floor). The west facade is at an angle to follow Broadway and there is a prominent, rounded northwest corner. The ground floor on 55th Street has six round-arched openings; the eastern three contain the hotel's main entrances, with glass-and-wood double-doors under fanlights; the two easternmost are slightly recessed. The next bay, closely spaced to the 3rd bay, has a window but is currently filled by an advertising board. A small, square-headed window separates the two western arches, with double-doors and windows, respectively, to a restaurant. Covering the three entrance bays at the east is a wavy, undulating, glass-and-metal canopy that was installed during a 2014 renovation. The west facade on Broadway have five slightly wider round-arches at the ground floor, with wood-and-glass infill continuing the restaurant storefronts. The narrow, chamfered northwest corner at the base has a glass-and-wood door at the ground floor, with a yellow clamshell canopy. Sloped yellow awnings cover the ground-floor bays on the west facade.

The fenestration pattern is the same on all the upper floors. From east to west on the north facade, there are two bays of double-windows (with black iron mullions), a single-window bay, a bay of smaller bathroom windows, another single-window bay, another bathroom window bay, and two more single-window bays, with the end bay spaced farther apart. At the 2nd floor they are all square-headed, with stone sills and splayed lintels. At the 3rd floor they are segmental-arched and have projecting, bracketed sills (except for the small bathroom windows). The wider double-window bays at the east end have small cartouches and acanthus leaves topping the arches. Each of the main bays has a pair of console brackets with a scale pattern, supporting stone balconies at the 4th floor, with stone balustrades. The balcony at the west end bay is rounded, wrapping around the corner bay and the north end bay on the west facade. Here there are, spaced farther apart from the north bay, a bay of double-windows, two single-window bay flanking a bay of small bathroom windows, and a south bay of double-windows. There are two balconies joined across the two groups of single- and double-window bays.

Above the base, each of the single-window bays has a stone surround with a splayed lintel and keystone, including the three single-windows that wrap around the now-projecting and rounded northwest corner. At even-numbered floors the lintels have cornices and scrolled keystones, and at odd-numbered floors the keystones are plain and topped by rounded pediments filled by cartouches. The exception is the middle bay at the rounded corner, where the pediments are peaked instead of rounded. Both edges of the rounded corner are framed by a vertical, keyed stone band.

The 2nd bay from the east on the north facade has prominent, projecting, keyed stone surrounds, and a pattern of lintels, cornices, and pediments like those on the single-window bays, except with peaked pediments. The east end bay matches the single-windows bays except for being wider. The bays with the small bathroom windows have simple stone sills and splayed lintels with keystones. There is also a column of even narrow little windows inserted just to the left of the eastern single-window bay. Both the double-window bays on the west facade match the projecting, stone-enframed bay on the north facade that is 2nd from the east. At the 9th floor all of the single-window and double-window bays are segmental-arched, with a projecting band course capping the mid-section of the building.

The 10th floor is topped by a projecting cornice with large modillions and stylized brackets. The 11th floor has a more modest cornice carried on metopes. The 12th floor has a nearly-vertical slate mansard roof on either side of the corner tower, which terminates in a dentiled cornices with three rounded pediments with cartouches.All of the window bays project as stone-enframed dormers topped by rounded or peaked pediments with cartouches. A limestone parapet caps the mansard, with a recessed penthouse level and roof deck on top. The top floor is faced in stone and has large, plate-glass windows.

The hotel contains 221 guestrooms and suites. Next to the lobby, the ground floor is occupied by Serafina restaurant, and on the roof is PhD Terrace lounge.

www.dreamhotels.com/hotels/new-york/new-york/dream-new-...