Hotel Stanford (New York City, New York)

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156-foot, 12-story hotel completed in 1898. Designed by Ralph S. Townsend, it opened as a bachelor hotel called the Hotel Pierrepont. The hotel was renamed the Alcazar in 1918, and later became the Stanford in the mid-1930s. In 1983 the Hotel Stanford became a project of the St. Francis Friends of the Poor, headquartered at No. 125 East 24th Street. Assemblyman Alexander B. Grannis described the program’s purpose as “to provide speedy housing for…homeless discharged mental-health patients.” Then in 1986 the nearly 90-year old hotel received a make-over, and re-opened at the Hotel Stanford, with 122 guest rooms.

The 7-bay facade is clad in Indiana limestone, rusticated at the 3-story base, and trimmed in terra-cotta. A portico supported by columns leads to the central entrance, fronted by a wide and rounded, red canvas awning. Storefronts are located to the left and right. The columns of the portico are topped by a entablature with a dentiled cornice. The 2nd floor has square-headed window openings, topped by angled red awnings. The 3rd floor has a band course at the bottom and round-arched windows.

Bracketed stone balconies with balustrades front the bases of the windows at the 4th floor; from the sides of the balustrades rise fluted Ionic columns supporting ornamented rounded pediments above the windows. The windows above have full stone surrounds, with carved faces flanked by wings at the bottoms, and cartouches at the tops. Another set of bracketed, projecting stone balconies fronts the windows at the 11th floor, which are round-arched. At the top floor, the piers are decorated by cartouches, and the facade is crowned by a black metal roof cornice with modillions and dentils.

The vertical "blade" sign reading "STANFORD HOTEL" remains attached near the west end of the facade, from the 3rd-5th floors.

www.hotelstanford.com/