Omni Berkshire Place

The Berkshire Hotel, now known as Omni Berkshire Place, was a hotel in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, operated by Omni Hotels & Resorts. Located at 21 East 52nd Street, near Madison Avenue, it opened in 1926 and was designed by architects Warren & Wetmore in Classical Revival style.[1] It was built as a residential hotel and was part of the "Terminal City" project consisting of hotels and apartment buildings in the area around Grand Central Terminal.[2] It previously had up to 500 suites,[3] but by the time it closed in 2020, it had 395 guestrooms and suites.[2]

Berkshire Hotel
Location within New York City
General information
Location21 East 52nd St.
Manhattan, New York, US
Coordinates40°45′34″N 73°58′29″W

Early history

The hotel, designed by architects Warren & Wetmore in Classical Revival style, opened in 1926.[1] At the time of construction, it was 10 stories tall, located on a plot measuring 100 by 62 feet (30 by 19 m). Two years later, J.C. and M.G. Mayer leased the hotel for 21 years with plans to renovate it.[4]

Connection to the arts

The Berkshire has historic ties to Broadway and the arts. Ethel Merman lived at the property for many years,[5][6] and Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote the musical Oklahoma! in a suite that was later named the Rodgers and Hammerstein Suite.[7] Alfred Hitchcock was also a regular.[8][9]

The hotel was for many years the home of an exclusive private dining club founded by drama critic Alexander Woolcott and designed by Norman Bel Geddes. The club was known as the Elbow Room upon its opening in 1938. Its founding members included Harold Ross, George S. Kaufman, Robert E. Sherwood, Moss Hart, William S. Paley, Raymond Massey, and Cedric Hardwicke.[10][11] Later renamed the Barberry Room, it was known as "the most exclusive restaurant in New York".[10] Rodgers and Hammerstein collaborated at a reserved table, Edward R. Murrow dined there each Friday before the airing of his Person to Person show, and Frank Sinatra dined there in 1955 with heiress Gloria Vanderbilt.[10][12] Marc Connelly, David Sarnoff, and Richard Rodgers continued to be regulars into the 1950s.[10]

Salvador Dali dined at the Barberry in 1960 and took offense at a William-Adolphe Bouguereau painting in the dining room depicting a satyr surrounded by nymphs. Dali reportedly considered Bouguereau's nymphs to be bad art and struck a deal with the hotel to trade his own painting of nymphs for the Bouguereau. Dali returned to the dining room days later and, as well-heeled diners watched and dodged paint, created an abstract impression of nymphs. He used a rubber cap on his head to apply the paint to a seven-foot canvas. The Barberry Room displayed Dali's nymphs for a time, but it was later relegated to a linen closet. In 1979, the New York Daily News reported that the Dali had disappeared.[13][14][15]

Subsequent sales and renovations
Omni Berkshire Place is at far right, across from the Look building at center.

The hotel was purchased in 1959 by the Knott Hotels Corporation and renamed the Knott Berkshire Hotel.[11] Knott subsequently announced plans to build a 15-story, 158-room addition to the Berkshire Hotel.[16]

In 1977, the hotel was acquired by the Dunfey Family Hotel Co., a subsidiary of Irish International Airlines,[17] for $9.7 million, becoming the first hotel in New York City to be run by that chain.[3] The new owner evicted Ethel Merman in 1978, stating that it did not want permanent residents.[18] In 1979, the Dunfey group renamed the hotel the "Berkshire Place Hotel".[14] Dunfey renovated the hotel the same year at a cost of $9 million[3][19] to designs by Peter Gisolfi Associates and interior architect Roland Jutras.[20] The project involved renovating all of the guest rooms.[19] The refurbished hotel opened in June 1979.[3] Its restoration was described by media as part of a "building boom" that followed the city's near-bankruptcy in 1975,[21] as well as part of a general trend of foreign airlines renovating hotels in New York City.[22]

The Dunfey group acquired the Omni hotel chain in 1983. In a 1986 rebranding effort, the hotel was renamed the "Omni Berkshire Place".[23] Omni bought the Berkshire Place hotel outright in March 1992 for $83.5 million.[24] The hotel was further renovated in 1995 and 2003.[2] During the 1995 renovation, which cost $50 million, the Omni Berkshire Place was downsized from 415 to 395 rooms, and numerous amenities were added to each room. After the renovation, the average guest room was 375 square feet (34.8 m2) and there were 20 handicapped-accessible guest rooms.[25]

In early 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, the hotel was temporarily closed and 268 staff members were fired.[26] On June 11, 2020, Omni announced that the Berkshire Hotel would close permanently, though TRT Holdings, owner of Omni Hotels, would retain the property for the time being.[27][28]

Critical reception

In 1979, The New York Times called the structure "a handsome unexceptional building erected in 1926 to the designs of Warren & Wetmore, one of New York's finest architectural firms of the eclectic period".[20]

References
  1. Panchyk, R. (2010). New York City Skyscrapers. Postcard History Series. Arcadia Publishing Incorporated. p. 111. ISBN 978-1-4396-3862-0. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
  2. "Omni Berkshire Place: History". Historic Hotels Worldwide. Retrieved May 6, 2020.
  3. "Dunfey Hotels Are Run As a Family Affair". The New York Times. 1979-06-15. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
  4. "Mayers Lease Hotel Berkshire". The New York Times. 1928-11-17. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
  5. Howard Kissel (2007). New York Theater Walks. Applause Theatre & Cinema Books. pp. 52–53.
  6. Kellow, Brian (2008). Ethel Merman : a life. New York: Penguin Books. p. 217. ISBN 978-0-14-311420-8. OCLC 223803989.
  7. Nyland, Christine (2016). "Broadway History At The Omni Berkshire". Broadway Inbound. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
  8. "Restored Berkshire Place Combines Charm, Modern Elegance". The Sunday Times. Scranton, Pennsylvania. May 4, 1980. p. C8. Retrieved 2020-05-08 – via newspapers.com .
  9. "N.Y. hotel refurbished to regain old splendor". Asbury Park Press. December 9, 1979. p. G6. Retrieved 2020-05-08 – via newspapers.com .
  10. Walker, Danton (March 11, 1956). "Broadway". New York Daily News. p. II-14. Retrieved 2020-05-08 – via newspapers.com .
  11. Danton Walker (January 18, 1959). "Broadway". New York Daily News. p. 14. Retrieved 2020-05-08 – via newspapers.com .
  12. "Gloria, Frankie Spend Day at Hide-and-Seek". New York Daily News. January 1, 1955. p. 3. Retrieved 2020-05-08 – via newspapers.com .
  13. "Dali Slaps Out Abstract Painting as Viewers Duck". The News Texan (UPI story). March 23, 1960. p. 7. Retrieved 2020-05-08 – via newspapers.com .
  14. "A Dali hanging in the closet". New York Daily News. March 4, 1979. p. 11J – via Newspapers.com.
  15. "Lyons Den". The Post-Standard. October 7, 1960. Retrieved 2020-05-08 – via newspapers.com .
  16. "Berkshire Hotel to Expand". The New York Times. 1959-01-01. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
  17. "Berkshire Hotel Sold". New York Daily News. December 17, 1977. p. B2. Retrieved 2020-05-08 – via newspapers.com .
  18. "Bing's widow writing books". New York Daily News. May 17, 1978. Retrieved 2020-05-08 – via newspapers.com .
  19. "Smatter 'O Facts". New York Daily News. August 19, 1979. p. 232. Retrieved May 8, 2020 – via newspapers.com .
  20. "Design Notebook". The New York Times. 1979-10-25. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
  21. "NYC enjoying old fashioned building boom". Journal-News. July 13, 1978. p. 37. Retrieved May 8, 2020 – via newspapers.com .
  22. "Real Estate". The New York Times. 1979-02-21. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
  23. "Far from Omni-potent". New York Daily News. April 4, 1986. p. 37. Retrieved 2020-05-08 – via newspapers.com .
  24. Miller, Leslie (1992-08-09). "FOCUS; How Omni Survived the Hotel Downturn". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
  25. "TRAVEL ADVISORY; Two New York Hotels Are in Transition". The New York Times. 1995-07-30. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
  26. "New York City Midtown hotel Omni Berkshire Place lays off 268 employees". Crain's New York Business. April 17, 2020. Retrieved July 7, 2020.
  27. "Billionaire Rowling's Manhattan Hotel to Permanently Close". Bloomberg via msn.com. 2020-06-11. Retrieved 2020-06-11.
  28. "Omni Berkshire Place to Close Permanently in Wake of Coronavirus". The Real Deal New York. June 12, 2020. Retrieved July 7, 2020.
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