The Gerard Hotel (Later Hotel Langwell & Hotel 1-2-3)

History and architecture

The Gerard, an exceptionally fine brick, limestone, and terra-cotta apartment hotel, designed in 1893 by George Keister, marks a transition in both American architectural taste and in the developmental history of the west Midtown area. Stylistically, it displays an unusual combination of Romanesque and Northern Gothic and Renaissance details found on very few other buildings in America. When it was erected, this apartment hotel was one of the tallest buildings in a predominantly low-rise residential area and it heralded the enormous change that the neighborhood was to undergo a few years later as it became the heart of New York City's theater district.

The Gerard was commissioned by the developers Alexander Moore and William Rankin who employed George Keister to design the new structure. Keister is a little-known archi-tect who was active in New York City from the late 1880s through the first decades of the twentieth century. Although few buildings by Keister have been identified, those that are known form an interesting group, and examination of his work reveals Keister as one of the more innovative and interesting architects of the period.

Among Keister's major works are the eccentrically-massed Romanesque Revival style First Baptist Church (1891) on the northwest corner of Broadway and West 79th Street and a group of ten row-houses on East 136th Street in the Bronx, known as the Bertine Block (1891). These rowhouses bear a close stylistic resemblance to the Gerard. During the twentieth century Keister seems to have specialized in the design of theaters. These include the German-Renaissance style Astor Theatte (1906, demolished) on Broadway and West 45th Street, the neo-Classical style Selwyn at 229 West 42nd Street (1918), the Balasco Theatre (originally David Balasco's Stuyvesant Theatre, 1906-07), a Colonial Revival style building with elegant interior spaces, located next to the Gerard, and the Apollo (1912-13), one of Harlem's great cultural monuments.