Omni Berkshire Place Hotel

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276-foot, 19-story Neo-Classical hotel completed in 1927. Designed by Warren & Wetmore with decoration by B. Altman & Co., it opened as the Berkshire Place Hotel. It is clad in red brick above a 4-story limestone base (the ground floor has been largely refaced in pink granite). The main entrance is on the south side on 52nd Street, with a revolving door and glass single-door flanked by two windows on each side, all framed in bronze and covered by a bronze marquee. Further to the west there is a restaurant with a glass-door entry in an angled notch, covered by a bronze canopy, three bays of bronze-framed tripartite windows at the dining area, and a metal service door at the far west end. At the east end there is a storefront of white-painted concrete with a rounded corner, continuing onto the east facade. This storefront has windows and glass doors with rounded corners. The north half of the east facade on the avenue has another storefront, this one painted grey, with two bays of tripartite show-windows flanked a bay with paired sliding glass doors.

Above the ground floor, the base has seven bays on the east facade, each with a tripartite window except for the narrower bay 2nd from the south, which has a single-window. Each bay and spandrel has slightly projecting frames, creating a grid-like appearance, also crossing the piers. The south facade on 52nd Street has eight bays of tripartite windows (plus a narrow single-window inserted between the two eastern bays), with the western two slightly set back. At the west end are four more bays of tripartite windows, grouped into two pairs, that are set much farther back above the ground floor, which is topped by a metal railing. A pair of projecting flagpoles are mounted at the 2nd floor above the main entrance.

The brick upper floors have matching tripartite windows. Between the floors in each bay are vents disguised with decorative iron grilles. The four recessed bays at the west end, and the next two as well, set back above the 11th floor, with another setback above the 13th floor, and a lower roof line at the 15th floor. The rest of the south facade has a stone string course above the 13th floor and a modillioned cornice above the 15th. From here the four western bays on the south facade, and the four northern bays on the east facade, set back, with projecting piers supporting stone cornices at the 17th & 19th floors. The two remaining bays on each facade also set back slightly above the 17th floor, with similar projecting piers up to the 19th floor, where there is another setback. A small, square mechanical penthouse rises from the main upper roof, topped by a low-sloped tile roof.

The hotel was sold and rebranded as an Omni hotel in 1978, with a full renovation in 1979. It was renovated again in 1995. The hotel has 398 guest rooms, including 44 suites. In 1942, America’s single greatest writing team, Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein, collaborated on the play that changed Broadway, and American musical theater forever, writing “Oklahoma!” in suite 2100, now called the Rodgers & Hammerstein Suite in their honor. Besides the hotel lobby, the ground floor is occupied by Berk's Bar at the west end, and Neuhaus chocolatier on the avenue.

The hotel closed temporarily in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and its conversion to offices was announced, but then reopened in 2021.

www.omnihotels.com/hotels/new-york-berkshire