Concorde Hotel (New York City, New York)

 hotel, airplane, maritime pilot, Modern (architecture)

395-foot, 35-story postmodern hotel completed in 1985. Designed by Anthony M. Salvati, it was intended as condominiums. It was one of the last sliver-style building erected in Manhattan. London-based Barclays Hotel Group bought the building in January 1984, shortly before its completion. It contracted with the architect Horace Ginsbern & Associates to re-engineer the building to a 107-room hotel with a small restaurant and bar.

The front, south facade is clad in rose-colored glass above a 2-story base clad in alternating bands of white and light-grey pre-cast concrete. The entrance is on the left, with glass double-doors in a slightly-projecting metal-and-glass vestibule with a rounded dark-grey canvas canopy extending out over the sidewalk. There is a transom window above the vestibule and a large square window at the 2nd floor. To the right, the east two-thirds of the facade projects boldly out, with a gate opening for a service entrance at the ground floor, and an open-air space in front of a 2nd-floor window. Above, the 3rd-8th floors also project on the east end. The projecting lower portion and the rest of the glass facade is dotted with staggered vertical metal fins. Near the top there is a 5-story vertical band of square, clear-glass windows at the center of the facade.

The east and west side elevations are clad in reddish-brown brick with exposed concrete floor plates. There is also a concrete band running up the middle of the east facade. At the front of the east facade there are square windows at the 3rd-8th floors. Above the setback, there is a bay of narrower windows at the front on both the east and west elevations.

The rear, north-facing facade is also clad in brick and has two bays of double-windows. The concrete core on the east side rises above the main roof line and ends at an angle, abutting a tall, thin, brick-clad mechanical bulkhead and water tower enclosure. Next to the east end of the building is a ramp and entrance to the underground parking garage.

Barclay’s plans for a luxury hotel did not proceed. The public areas in the building were likely not adequate for a 4 to 5 star hotel. The hotel was transitioned to another British company – Trusthouse Forte, who then sold it in 1990 to British Airways. BA contracted with Fitzpatrick Hotel Company to operate the hotel for the benefit of British Airway crews and employees. The sheer volume of daily flights BA operates to New York meant having their own hotel for staff made financial sense. The hotel’s name changed to the Fitzpatrick East 55th Street Hotel – but was not open to the public.

British Airways sold the Fitzpatrick-managed hotel in 2002 to Hotel Properties LTD, Singapore. HPL retained Fitzpatrick Hotels as the manager and the contract continued with British Airways to operate it solely for BA’s benefit. Hotel Properties LTD discontinued the contract with Fitzpatrick Hotels and renamed the hotel to its proprietary brand – Concorde Hotel. It remains a hotel for British Airway crews but not as a hotel for the public.

It finally opened to all in 2018.

www.concordehotelnewyork.com/