The High Line Hotel

 hotel, Neo-Gothic (architecture), interesting place, 1900_construction

6-story Neo-Gothic multi-use complex completed in 1900 as the Hoffman & Eigenbrodt Halls for the General Theological Seminary. Designed by Charles Coolidge Haight, the buildings were renovated and combined into the Desmond Tutu Education Center in 2007. The complex housed a conference center, religious studies facilities, and hotel rooms. It was sold in 2012 to the Brodsky Organization, who have already purchased and redeveloped several other seminary properties.

Haight's designs for the original buildings use the same stone base as his other campus buildings, with red brick cladding above. Hoffman Hall, on the northwest corner of the campus, housed both the refectory and gymnasium. It is shaped as an L, with the western portion consisting of a richly revealed and molded entrance door, flanked by an octagonal staircase tower with an ogee turret. The bay window of the refectory, carried on corbels, may be seen at the north portion of the L. It is paneled below and has handsome mullions supporting a crenelated parapet.

Eigenbrodt Hall was built to house dormitories. In the basement was a complete laundry facility. It features multiple peaks and gables above the 5th floor, with triangular dormers and brick chimneys breaking the high-pitched slate roof. On the south facade, the 2nd and 3rd story outer windows have projecting stone bays, and there are two large recessed-arched entrances on the ground floor.

The combined complex was renamed for Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and offered programs, conferences and seminars to explore national and international issues of the church courses to support specialized ministries, continuing education for ordained ministers, and opportunities for distance learning and conferencing.

After it opened in 2007, it also began operating 60 hotel rooms - supposedly to be used for students and those affiliated with the seminary, but in actuality operating as a public hotel for MCR.

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