The Renwick Hotel

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16-story Neo-Renaissance shelter housing building completed in 1928 as the Bedford Hotel. Designed by George F. Pelham, it reopened as The Renwick in 2015.

The 5-bay wide facade is clad in variegated reddish-brown brick with cream-colored terra-cotta ornament at the base and top. The main entrance is in the middle bay, with black wood-and-glass double-doors in a terra-cotta surround with carved ornament and quoins at the outer edges. It is covered by a large, suspended black metal canopy with lettering on top reading "THE RENWICK". To either side is a bay with triple-windows separated by spiral colonnettes with gargoyle capitals; the windows are topped by terra-cotta round-arches with elaborate decoration, lined in brick. The east end bay has an entrance to the ground-floor restaurant and bar, topped by an ornamented terra-cotta panel carried on a pair of sideways brackets in the form of snarling lions. This is surmounted by a small black metal canopy. The west end bay has a recessed grey metal service door down a few steps from the sidewalk, with a matching panel and brackets.

The 2nd floor has triple-windows with round-arches like those at the ground floor, but at the middle and end bays; the brick around the arches is different at the end bays - wider, with terra-cotta impost blocks at the ends, and terra-cotta keystones at the top. There are also a pair of small terra-cotta roundels outlined in brick above the end bays. The other two bays have tripartite casement windows in dark-grey metal framing, topped by flat brick lintels.

The upper floors have the same casement windows in all five bays. At the 3rd floor the middle bays are topped by series of brick round-arches (three at the center bay and four at the other two), each framing a small terra-cotta shield. The 4th floor is set off by a band course above brick corbeling. There is a brick lintel course across the three middle bays at this floor. The piers separating the end bays project very slightly at the 4th-13th floors.

The brick spandrel of the center bay below the 12th floor small terra-cotta shields, and the spandrel below the next floor has three larger shields. The end-bay spandrels here have brick paneling and a terra-cotta block at the base; another matching block is seen at the center-bay spandrel below the 10th floor. The four outer bays set back above the 12th floor. The end bays at the 12th floor are topped by large terra-cotta panels with projecting gargoyles, and the next bays have smaller terra-cotta panels (there are smaller double-windows here). The center bay is topped by a projecting terra-cotta balcony, with triple-windows on the 13th & 14th floors. These are separated by spiral colonnettes, with terra-cotta spandrels between the two floors, and round-arches topping the windows of the 14th floor. The 15th floor has a double-window and is capped by a parapet, the corners of which are highlighted by boldly projecting terra-cotta flourishes. There is another setback to the top floor.

After a planned conversion to a shelter for unhoused familes in 2020 for roughly 170 homeless families without minor children, the idea was dropped. It was purchased by Capstone Equities who revived the hotel.

www.therenwick.com/offers?gclid=CjwKCAiAioifBhAXEiwApzC...