Humanitarian Emergency Response & Relief Center at the Stewart Hotel (New York City, New York)

 hotel, high-rise, Romanesque (architecture), 1929_construction

341-foot, 31-story Italianate-Romanesque-revival hotel completed in 1929. Designed by Murgatroyd & Ogden with George B. Post & Sons as consulting architect, it was originally called the Governor Clinton Hotel. In 1967 it was converted to residential apartments called Penn Gardens, and then Southgate Towers in 1974. It returned it to hotel usage in 2004 as the Affinia Manhattan Hotel, and was renamed the Stewart Hotel in 2016. It closed in 2022 for conversion back to apartments.

Both main facades are clad in buff-colored brick above a 3-story limestone base. The western facade is five bays wide, with a central entrance of brass and glass covered by a brass marquee. There are also two large flagpoles angling out from above this entrance. The north facade is 15 bays wide, with a wider entrance toward the east end, frame in black stone. It also has a brass marquee suspended above with small carvings of squirrels coming off the guideposts. The far eastern bay has a service entrance; the others have storefronts, except for near the center on 31st Street that has an entrance to the underground parking garage.

Above the ground floor are arcades of double-height round-arches. On the north elevation they alternate in groups of three - being set under either pointed-arch architraves, or rounded architraves supported by Corinthian columns. Between the pointed-arches are large, wall-mounted lanterns. All five of the arches on the west facade are of the pointed variety. The windows within each arch are the same, with iron framing.

On the north side (and also the south elevation) there are two large light courts above the sections with the round-arches and columns. Here the base is capped by a parapet with a band of small pointed-arches just below the setback. At the other sections the base appears to extend one floor higher, where it is banded with three strips of brick. At each of these 3-bay sections, this floor has two small windows above the center arch, and a rounded window above the end arches; ornamented stone projections with paired brackets follow the curve of the window's arch and form small balconies at the 5th floor. At the level of the balconies, small string courses set off the upper brick floors. These features repeat at the west facade, but with paired windows and wider balconies at the end bays.

On the west facade, the upper floors of the center and end bays have simple paired windows with stone sills. The intermediate bays have single-windows, and the surrounding brick is dotted with patterns of projecting bricks, all the way up to a crenelated cornice and setback above the 20th floor. On the north facade, the center bay of each main wing has smaller paired windows set in the same field of projecting brick patterns, while the outer bays have larger single-windows. The eastern wing extends only up to the 12th floor before the first setback, while the other two wings extend up to the 20th floor; here, above a cornice, is a short 2-story section with round-arched windows on the 22nd floor, and another 4-story section also topped by round-arched windows. The corners on these upper setback sections are chamfered at a 45-degree angle.

The walls of the light courts are clad in a slightly darker shade of brick, with two windows on the side walls, and five windows on the rear walls, alternating plain brick and set in bays of dotted brick. Many of the windows in the light courts, as well as almost all of those on the west facade, have protruding air-conditioning units.

A few more setbacks topped by crenelated cornices crown the building. The east elevation is clad in buff-colored brick, rising straight up to the 29th floor, with bays of either paired or single-windows. The three bays closest to the front, but behind the 12th-floor setback are framed in darker brown brick. The south elevation has single-windows on the outer bays of the main wings, with smaller paired windows at the center of each wing, framed in brown brick. The light courts are similar to those on the north side, but the two eastern wings extend further out.

Besides the lobby, the ground floor is occupied by Niles restaurant, Apple Bank for Savings, and Dunkin' Donuts. The hotel contains 618 guest rooms formerly operated by Highgate Development. It is currently being used as an intake shelter for migrants run by Acacia Network.

www.stewarthotelnyc.com/

hdc.org/buildings/stewart-hotel/
daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-1929-governo...
usmodernist.org/AF/AF-1930-02-1.pdf
cdm16694.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15052co...
citylimits.org/2022/09/30/nyc-opens-300-household-intak...