The Muse Hotel (New York City, New York)

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17-story Renaissance-revival hotel completed in 1912 as a 12-story commercial building. Designed by Nast & Springsteen, it was originally called the Leavitt Building, and served as a jewelry manufacturing and warehouse building. It was converted to a hotel in 1997 by Apple Core Hotels and opened as the Golden Tulip Manhattan Hotel. It is now the Muse Hotel, a Kimpton property.

The 3-bay facade is clad in brown brick above a 2-story rusticated limestone base. The piers rest on grey granite plinths and frame three double-height segmental-arched openings. There is glass-and-metal infill in each bay, with the main entrance in the center bay, topped by a modern frosted glass canopy. There are brown metal vents and panels above the ground floor, separating the tripartite compositions of the 2nd floor, which has blue-grey metal panels in the center of each bay, dividing tripartite windows at the end of each arch. There are additional blue-grey metal panels and brown vents below the windows. Each arch has a large, scrolled keystones just below the cornice that caps the base. Across the upper part of he east bay is a wispy, abstract ornament of stainless-steel, resembling a transparent curtain being pulled back.

The upper floors have two sets of paired windows in each bay, with narrow brick pilasters between the pairs, and dark-grey iron mullions dividing the panes within each pair. Continuous stone sills join all the windows in each bay. The spandrels, above brick lintels, have geometric stone forms, with shields at the centers. The facade originally had a peaked and ornamented pediment at the roof line, but this was replaced by a flat roof line and stone coping when the building was renovated. Five new floors were added on top, set far back. They are clad in dark-red brick, with small setbacks above the 14th & 16th floors.

The east and west elevations are clad in lighter-red brick, except for the brown brick at the very front. The west side has a bay of single-windows at the front and two more at the rear, with two bays of smaller windows in between, as well as multiple bays of former openings that have been filled-in. The east side has five bays of paired windows, with the northern window of the front pair in the brown brick section. The northern windows of the second pair have been filled-in.

The hotel contains 200 guest rooms.

www.themusehotel.com/