The Gallivant Times Square Hotel | 1928_construction, Renaissance Revival (architecture)

 hotel, 1928_construction, Renaissance Revival (architecture)

157-foot, 16-story Renaissance-revival hotel completed in 1928. Designed by Hyman Isaac Feldman, it opened as the Hotel President, and has undergone numerous reincarnations, most recently as the Best Western Plus President Hotel, TRYP Times Square, and now The Gallivant Times Square.

It is clad in dark-red brick above a 2-story white-painted limestone base. The main entrance is just east of center, with two sets of metal-and-glass double-doors and sidelights below a glass-and-metal canopy. To the left is a restaurant storefront with a glass door flanked by two windows; at the far east end is a grey polished granite pier. To the right of the main entrance is a colorful wall mosaic of long, narrow tiles, flanked by a window at each end and topped by a band of grey granite; the western window is part of the restaurant storefront at the west end, which has a glass door with a small glass-and-metal canopy. At the far west end is a metal service door, framed by a continuation of the grey granite. The 2nd floor has a bay of round-arched double-windows in the center, flanked by bays of six round-arched windows and end bays of wider round-arched windows, all of which are set of slightly recessed, square-headed niches and have slender, framing, rope-molded columns at the sides. The two end bays windows also sit above carved panels with small shields flanked by a row of wavy lines. The base is capped by a black, rounded, stone band course with a black cartouche at each end.

The upper floors have nine bays of windows, all single-windows except for the double-windows in the 2nd-from-end bays that are divided by black metal mullions. The windows all have thin stone sills and black metal air-conditioning vents below them. Three flagpoles project from the 3rd floor.

There is a setback at the three outer bays above the 12th floor, marked by a pair of bracketed and crelenated cornices. The three center bays have stone balcony ledges at the 13th floor, with the windows of the 13th-15th floors grouped within 3-story moldings ending in round-arched at the top with small cartouches. The side walls of this center section are angled back to the recessed outer bays, and the center section is topped by a crenelated cornice above a frieze with an arcade of arches. The outer bays are capped by a simpler cornice at the 15th floor, and there is a recessed penthouse floor surmounted by mechanical bulkheads on the rooftop.

The west elevation is clad in the same dark-red brick at the front section, which is windowless and crossed by geometric patterns of beige brick, and clad in beige brick at the rear section. The rear section of the west elevation has five bays of double-windows but these narrow to single-windows and drop off at the various setbacks of the rear facade. The east elevation has the red brick with beige lines at the north and south ends, and a light court in the middle. The light court is clad in beige brick with windows on each of the three inward-facing walls. The rear, south facade is clad in beige brick with nine bays of windows. They are all double-windows, except for the western two, which are single-windows, one of which has small bathroom windows. There are shallow setbacks above the 7th, 9th, and 12th floors. At the upper levels, some of the double-windows change to small paired or single bathroom windows.

The hotel contains 334 guest rooms. The ground floor is occupied by An'nam restaurant, and Ding Korean BBQ restaurant.