M Social Hotel Times Square (New York City, New York)

USA / New Jersey / West New York / New York City, New York / West 52nd Street, 226

272-foot, 31-story postmodern hotel completed in 1984 as the Novotel New York. Designed by Gruzen Samton Steinglass, the tower was built on top of an existing 6-story building from 1929, which was reclad to match and serve as the tower's base. The base portion serves as an annex to the adjoining Times Square Church (originally a theater), with the hotel only extending to the street on the north side, where its entrance on 52nd Street is located. The hotel lobby is on the 6th floor.

The facade is clad in orange brick on both the tower and base. Along Broadway, the base spans nine bays with bands of four windows in green metal framing (and also green metal lintels above the windows) in each bay, except for the smaller central bay, which has double-windows. The ground floor has plate-glass storefronts and a bronze-and-glass, 3-door entrance at the middle bay. At the 2nd floor, the middle bay and two of the outer bays have projecting sign boards in place of windows. The 5th floor has metal lovers in the openings, and is mostly obscured by a row of billboards. The north and south facades have four bays with the same windows, and continuation of the storefronts at the east half. To the west are two loading docks on the south facade, and on the north side is the hotel entrance, covered by a glass-and-metal canopy.

The tower is set back on the north, east, and south sides, with a dark-tinted glass solarium-like feature projecting out along the east side at the 6th floor. The north end of the east facade has six bays of double-windows with green-tinted glass. Beginning at the 16th floor there are bands of green accent brick below the windows in each bay, and extending to the north edge from the northernmost bay. The green bands double in thickness to take up the entire spandrel between each floor beginning at the 23rd floor, and at the top floor the bands below and above continue across the piers as well. The south portion of the east facade is set farther back; it has two bays of double-windows with green spandrels near where it joins the north section. At the south edge there are short green bands continuing around the corner from the south facade, where they begin at the 16th floor.

The south facade has five bays of double-windows with the same pattern of green bands increasing in width at the top floors. There is a setback at the easternmost bay below the top floor. The north facade has two bays of double-windows flanking a single-window bay at its east section, also with the same green banding. The narrower west portion of the north facade is set far back, without any openings. The north part of the west facade has five bays of double-windows and banding; the projecting south part has no openings, with banding at the south corner. There is a rooftop penthouse level at the south end.

The hotel contains 480 guest rooms. The ground floor is occupied by a McDonald's, I (Heart) NY Gifts, and a Duane-Reade pharmacy.
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Coordinates:   40°45'45"N   73°59'1"W
This article was last modified 1 year ago