History and architecture
The Knickerbocker Hotel is one of the very few grand hotels in the Beaux-Arts style surviving in the Times Square area. Designed in 1901 by the firm of Marvin & Davis with the well-known Bruce Price as consulting architect, the building was financed by John Jacob Astor, the fourth namesake of the patriarch of one of America's richest families. It is executed in red brick, richly ornamented with French Renaissance detail, and crowned by a prominent copper mansard roof with corner pavilions and cresting.
The Knickerbocker was one of several New York hotels built by the Astor family in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Near Times Square in the heart of the theater district, it was advertised as a "Fifth Avenue Hotel at Broadway Prices"; intended to attract not only guests in residence, but also theater-goers and other visitors, its large restaurants and bar-rooms were elaborately decorated, featuring electrified fountains, and murals by noted artists such as Maxfield Parrish and Frederic Remington. These public rooms were designed in 1905 by the firm of Trowbridge & Livingston.
The hotel site also includes an annex with a narrow Romanesque Revival facade on West 41st Street which pre-dates the main building. This structure, which was used as a service entrance, was originally a small hotel, designed by Philip C. Brown in 1894.
With the onset of Prohibition, the Knickerbocker was converted to commercial and office use and continues to serve these purposes, while also reflecting the architectural richness of the Times Square area in the Gilded Age.
Sources and further reading
This history comes from the Landmarks app’s historical catalog. Names and building uses may reflect the period described.