George Washington Hotel
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The George Washington Hotel was a hotel and boarding house located at 23 Lexington Avenue in Manhattan, NY. The building was occupied by many famous writers, musicians, and poets including W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood who lived there in the 1930's.
In the late 1960's, Minoru Yamasaki and a team of architects drafted the early plans for the World Trade Center in a suite at the George Washington, and the 1990's Dee Dee Ramone occupied a room there.
The George Washington Hotel in New York City's Gramercy Park District was opened in 1928. In 1939 the poetW.H. Auden stayed at this hotel, calling it "much the nicest hotel in town", another famous resident was writer Christopher Isherwood. For a period of time the building was closed, a possible destruction of the building was prevented via the local historical society. The hotel was re-opened with space purchased via StudentHousing.org in the mid-90s during the city's rebirth. Most of the space is currently under lease through the School of Visual Arts. Some of the original tenants live in the building and pay monthly rent at low rates, as they are still protected under NYC single room rent laws for permanent occupant evictions or rent increase. article. Once the resident leaves or dies however, studenthousing.org leases the room to The School of Visual Arts. The history of the George Washington Hotel involves at one time being a brothel and once a bootlegging house during the prohibition era. During the 80s, the hotel received several instances of police activity, which in all fairness was common for B-Class hotels during this era. Two of these instances can be viewed via NY TIMES archives 1 2.
