Ameritania Hotel (New York City, New York)

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158-foot, 12-story Beaux-Arts hotel completed in 1902. Designed by Mulliken & Moeller, it is clad in buff-colored brick with limestone detailing above a 3-story, white-painted limestone base. It was earlier the Hotel Cumberland, and then the Bryant Hotel, which deteriorated in latter part of the century, serving as a housing for the homeless in the 1990s. It was subsequently sold and renoveted, reopening as the Ameritania Hotel at Times Square.

The hotel entrance is at the center of the north facade on 54th Street. It has glass double-doors atop three black stone steps, covered by a shiny metal canopy. The doorway is set in a double-height, slightly recessed opening that is framed by an elaborately carved molding with floral motifs, continuing up to a segmental-arch topping the double-window at the 2nd floor, where there is a large, tripartite keystone. There is a paneled spandrel below the window and above the canopy of the entrance. The rest of the lower two floors is rusticated. Two narrow, slightly-projecting bays flank the center bay, with small windows at the 2nd floor, above which are ornate paired brackets featuring carved faces; these support the projecting middle section of the cornice that caps the 2nd floor. To the west there are three bays of tall segmental-arched windows at the ground floor, and square-headed windows with projecting sills at the 2nd. To the east there is a tall, square-headed window at the ground floor, followed by two glass-and-metal storefronts, both with double-doors. The 2nd floor has the same three windows as on the west end. Above the cornice, the 3rd floor has a double-window in the center, flanked by small windows, and then three single-windows on either side. The single-windows have keystones broken into three pieces, and the smaller windows have thinner keystones. A pair of elaborate console brackets flanks the center bay, supporting a thinner band course that projects out at the middle and caps the base.

The upper floors have banded brick and quoins framing the middle three bays, which have a double-window, and small single-windows; the small windows have stone sills and splayed keystones, while the double-windows in the center are separated by carved stone spandrels between floors. The piers around the center bay project, concave on the inner edges, with alternating bands of paneled and plain stone. A large cartouche tops the center bay at the 9th floor, flanked by large console brackets supporting a stone balcony at the 10th floor. The three outer bays on either side have wide single-windows with bracketed stone sills and splayed lintels, and the end piers are banded and edged with quoins. A large advertisement covers the eastern two bays from the 4th-8th floors. The 10th floor is topped by a stone cornice, setting off the 2-story crown.

The top two floors are similar to those below, except for the more elaborate spandrels and sills in the outer bays, and the molding with roundels framing the center bay, where there is a broken pediment at the base of the 11th floor, topping the cornice. At the roof line there is hanging ornament accenting the piers, just below the white stone roof cornice which has modillions, dentils, and an egg-and-dart molding, as well as a cartouche over it at the center bay.

The east facade on Broadway mostly matches the design of the north facade, except for the layout of the bays. Here there are two bays of wide single-windows flanking a bay of small windows on either side of the center bay. The center bay at the base also lacks the ornament seen on the north facade. All five of the ground-floor bays have matching glass-and-metal storefront windows with glass-and-metal doors set in the middle of each. A vertical sign mounted at the north edge reads "AMERITANIA HOTEL".

The hotel contains 219 guest rooms. The ground floor along Broadway is occupied by a gift shop.

www.ameritanianyc.com/