Traveler's Hotel

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5-story Queen Anne-style hotel completed in 1882. It opened as Shea's Hotel, with a saloon in the ground floor. The facades are clad in red-painted brick with sandstone trim, now with a variety of metal-and-glass storefronts on the ground floor. The west facade on the avenue is divided into two halves. The 2nd floor has off-set show-windows with wider panes at the inside edge; the two bays are framed by projecting brick piers with stone capitals supporting a stone sill course at the 3rd floor; the sill runs above a fluted band. The 3rd floor has paired windows in each bay, with round-arches in sandstone and ornately carved terra-cotta; the middle and end piers have recessed vertical grooves. A stone cornice sets off the top two floors, which have four square-headed windows, topped at the 5th floor by carved terra-cotta round-arched with keystones. All five piers at the top floor have recessed vertical grooves, and the spandrels between the top two floors have sawtooth brick patterns.

The longer north facade on 40th Street is divided into three main bays. The middle bay has the main entrance at the ground floor, in black metal. The 2nd floor has wide triple-windows in the eastern two bays, and a band of four windows in the west bay, with wide stone sills and grey metal mullions. At the 3rd-5th floors each bay has two square-headed windows separated by a wide, projecting pier springing from a carved stone base at the bottom of the 3rd floor. The piers have three vertical grooves at the 3rd floor, a sawtooth diamond shape at the 4th, two further projecting vertical bands with grooved centers at the lower part of the 5th floor, and a cross-shape at the top of the facade. There are sawtooth brick spandrel panels between the floors at each window, with the 4th-floor windows topped by eared lintels. A black iron fire escape runs down the middle bay. Both facades are crowned by a black metal roof cornice with console brackets, panels, and dentils.

The hotel was operated by Mary McWilliams, while owner John S. Shea ran the saloon downstairs. With Shea's saloon shut down by Prohibition, Friedman’s Pharmacy opened on the the Eighth Avenue side, as did George Papageorge’s jewelry store. In 1928 architect Samuel Roth completed a conversion of the hotel into "furnished rooms" on the upper floors. In 1936 small stores continued to operate from street level and the second floor was converted to a billiard parlor. During World War II there were approximately 40 tenants in the upper floors. By the 1970s the neighborhood was filled with prostitutes, drug dealers, and sex-oriented shops. The former Shea’s Hotel was now the Traveler’s Hotel and its reputation had not improved. In August 1982 the old hotel was taken over by the West Side Cluster, an association of Manhattan settlement houses, and converted into a shelter for the homeless. It has since reopened as the Traveler's Hotel. The ground floor is occupied by Fancy Perfumes, ESmoke & Convenience Store, Kiss My Slice Pizza, Burger Mania, and Elegant Eyebrow Threading Spa.