History and architecture
The Beaux Arts style Hotel Wolcott is a distinctive early 20th-century hotel in midtown Manhattan, located close to numerous sites for entertainment, business and shopping as well as various transportation methods. Designed by the prominent architect John H. Duncan, the hotel served as a meeting place for many important political events such as LaGuardia’s inaugural ball, and was the long-term residence of well-known people such as Isadora Duncan and Doris Duke.
The hotel was typical of the midtown hotels of the period in the variety and quality of its accommodations but stood out for its distinctive classical French Beaux Arts style consisting of over-scaled keystones, brackets and cartouches, rendered with the sure hand of a master architect. Faced in pink brick and limestone with a substantial copper-covered mansard roof, the building provides a solid and graceful facade in this busy part of the city.
Duncan is best known for his designs for the General Ulysses S. Grant National Memorial as well as the Soldiers’ and Sailor’s Memorial Arch in Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn. He is also responsible for numerous classically-styled and distinguished homes for wealthy New Yorkers, particularly in midtown and the Upper East Side. At the Hotel Wolcott, Duncan created a unique classical design, appropriate for the exuberance of the period, and one that gives a distinctive presence to this building which continues to fulfill the same functions for which it was designed, more than 100 years ago.
Sources and further reading
This history comes from the Landmarks app’s historical catalog. Names and building uses may reflect the period described.