Astor House, (New York), June 1836 Jiahao Wang

Name: Astor House

Architect: Isaiah Rogers

Time: June, 1836

Astor house located on the west side of Broadway between Vesey street and Barclay street. It’s opened in June 1836 as the park hotel and soon became the pretty famous building. The building was built by John Jacob Astor, and this is one reason why people call it to Astor house. It was designed by Isaiah Rogers, and he is a very famous and great architect. He designed the first luxury hotel, which called Tremond House, in Boston, The United States. This building is six floors and 309 rooms, but the sixth floor is servant’s room only. It has other ‘Astor House,’ which was built in other area, such as Shanghai, China. Cause it’s a very famous house.

 This Astor house was built for 1 million and offered the central heating that is very advanced science in that time. The designer Isaiah Rogers mainly used classic Greek style. There were two giant Doric columns at the entrance. The hotel furnished with luxury décor had more than 300 guest rooms in total. There were many trees surrounding the hotel. The courtyard was fully tree-shaded. The spacious hotel could accommodate up to 800 people including 120 staffs. The hotel itself had six floors. There were bathrooms and restrooms on every floor which was a really luxury facility at that time. The hotel had daily water supply from two large water reserve underground the hotel. The underground was also where the printers was located. The printer was mainly used to print out daily menu and office documents for the hotel.

The courtyard had a very special interior structure designed by James Bogardus, a very famous architect known by the cast-iron architecture he created. The interior part was built by an elliptical vaulted cast-iron-and-glass rotunda. In the middle was the Astor Exchange where businessman from all over the world could have business meetings. On the two sides were the restaurants where the businessmen could have lunch and dinner afterwards. The Astor House was among the top list of business and politic elites. Astor house was the best-known hotel in the country, and many literary figures and statesmen met here, such as Mathew Brady, Abraham Lincoln and Ole Bull, so it’s a pretty important hotel in New York. During the snow storm of 1888, this hotel was used to be a safe area. Also, Charles Evans Hughes stayed here and prepare his presidential speech.

The location of the Astor House also contributed to its popularity among the wealthy class and politicians. It was located right next to the City Hall of New York and world famous newspapers. Businessmen and politicians came and went in that area. The classic Greek Design was a perfect fit into that neighborhood.

The Astor House was such a famous and popular hotel at that time. It raised competition in the hotel industry in that area. New hotels was built in the district with more advanced heating system which quickly took The Astor House’s dominating market share. Room occupancy started to decline because The Astor House didn’t keep up with the latest trend of luxurious hotel in the district.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astor_House