Hotel Edison is at 228 West 47th Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Opened in 1931, it is part of the

Triumph Hotels Triumph Hotels is a collection of historic boutique hotels in New York City which includes the Hotel Belleclaire (a designated landmark in Manhattan), The Iroquois New York, The Iroquois Hotel and the Hotel Edison. Famous past guests have inclu ...

brand, owned by Shimmie Horn and Gerald Barad.

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventio ...

turned on the lights when it opened. It accommodated 1,000 guests on 26 floors and offered three restaurants. It attempted to mimic the telephone number

PEnnsylvania 6-5000 PEnnsylvania 6-5000 is a telephone number in New York City, written in the 2L+5N (two letters, five numbers) format that was common from about 1930 into the 1960s. The number is best known from the 1940 hit song " Pennsylvania 6-5000", a swing j ...

of the

Hotel Pennsylvania The Hotel Pennsylvania was a historic hotel at 401 Seventh Avenue (15 Penn Plaza) in Manhattan, across the street from Pennsylvania Station and Madison Square Garden in New York City. Opened in 1919, it was once the largest hotel in the world. ...

by using the

telephone exchange name A telephone exchange name or central office name was a distinguishing and memorable name assigned to a central office. It identified the switching system to which a telephone was connected, and facilitated the connection of telephone calls betwee ...

CIrcle 6-5000. Herbert J. Krapp was the architect, and Milton J. Kramer was the original owner. The hotel's ballroom was used as the

Broadway theatre Broadway theatre,Although ''theater'' is generally the spelling for this common noun in the United States (see American and British English spelling differences), 130 of the 144 extant and extinct Broadway venues use (used) the spelling ''Th ...

s Arena Theatre in 1950 and as the

Edison Theatre The Edison Theatre was a Broadway theatre located in the Hotel Edison at 240 West 47th Street in Midtown Manhattan. Originally opening in 1931 as the hotel's ballroom, it became the Arena Theatre on May 31, 1950, with a revival of George Kelly ...

from 1972 until 1991, when it was converted back into a ballroom. In the early 1950s, "Glorious"

Gloria Parker Gloria Parker (née Rosenthal; August 20, 1921April 13, 2022) was an American musician and bandleader who had a radio show during the big band era. ''The Gloria Parker Show'' was broadcast nightly from 1950 to 1957, coast to coast on WABC. She ...

and her orchestra hosted an evening broadcast on WOR from the Hotel Edison. Parker would open the show with the

glass harp A glass harp (also called musical glasses, singing glasses, angelic organ, verrillon or ghost fiddle) is a musical instrument made of upright wine glasses. It is played by running moistened or chalked fingers around the rim of the glasses. Eac ...

(or musical glasses) and feature the popular Latin sound on her

marimba The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...

with her orchestra.

Henry Jerome Henry Jerome (November 12, 1917 – March 23, 2011) was an American big band leader, trumpeter, arranger, composer, and record company executive. Jerome formed his first dance band in 1932 in Norwich, Connecticut. His bands flourished throughou ...

was a band leader at the hotel when he heard from

Bill Randle Bill Randle (March 14, 1923 – July 9, 2004) was an American disc jockey, lawyer and university professor. Randle was born William McKinley Randle Jr. in Detroit, Michigan. In Detroit, he hosted a popular show on WJLB-AM radio (now WDTK) calle ...

about a trio. This led the signing of

Dorsey Burnette Dorsey William Burnett Jr. (December 28, 1932 – August 19, 1979) was an American early rockabilly singer. With his younger brother Johnny Burnette and a friend named Paul Burlison, he was a founder member of The Rock and Roll Trio. He is als ...

Johnny Burnette John Joseph Burnette (March 25, 1934 – August 14, 1964) was an American singer and songwriter of rockabilly and pop music. In 1952, Johnny and his brother, Dorsey Burnette, and their mutual friend Paul Burlison formed the band that became ...

and

Paul Burlison Paul Burlison (February 4, 1929 – September 27, 2003) was an American pioneer rockabilly guitarist and a founding member of The Rock and Roll Trio. Burlison was born in Brownsville, Tennessee, where he was exposed to music at an early age ...

to a management contract. Jerome got Johnny a daytime job as an elevator operator at the hotel and moved

The Rock and Roll Trio The Rock and Roll Trio were an American rockabilly group formed in Memphis, Tennessee, during the 1950s. They were also known as "Johnny Burnette and the Rock and Roll Trio" and the "Johnny Burnette Trio". The members of the Trio were Dorsey Bur ...

in the hotel from the

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams (philanthropist), Georg ...

. He secured a contract for the trio with GAC (

General Artists Corporation General Amusement Corporation (GAC) was an international talent booking agency that was acquired by ICM Partners in 1974. In the 1940s, GAC's name was changed to General Artists Corporation to avoid confusion with a registered coin-machine compan ...

) and with the Coral division of Decca Records. The hallway walking scene preceding

Luca Brasi Luca Brasi is a fictional character in Mario Puzo's 1969 novel ''The Godfather'', as well as its 1972 film adaptation. In the film, he was portrayed by Lenny Montana, an ex-wrestler and former bodyguard and enforcer for the Colombo crime famil ...

's murder in the 1972 film ''

The Godfather ''The Godfather'' is a 1972 American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mario Puzo, based on Puzo's best-selling 1969 novel of the same title. The film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caa ...

'' was filmed in the hotel. It was the penthouse in

Woody Allen Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing ...

's 1994 film ''

Bullets over Broadway ''Bullets Over Broadway'' is a 1994 American black comedy crime film directed by Woody Allen, written by Allen and Douglas McGrath and starring an ensemble cast including John Cusack, Dianne Wiest, Chazz Palminteri and Jennifer Tilly. The fil ...

''.

Neil Simon Marvin Neil Simon (July 4, 1927 – August 26, 2018) was an American playwright, screenwriter and author. He wrote more than 30 plays and nearly the same number of movie screenplays, mostly film adaptations of his plays. He has received mo ...

's 2001 play '' 45 Seconds from Broadway'' is set in the hotel's cafe.

Michael Keaton Michael John Douglas (born September 5, 1951), known professionally as Michael Keaton, is an American actor. He is known for his various comedic and dramatic film roles, including Jack Butler in ''Mr. Mom'' (1983), Betelgeuse in '' Beetlejuice'' ...

is seen drinking at the hotel's bar, the Rum House, in the 2014 film '' Birdman''.

References

External links

* * * {{Times Square Edison Edison Edison Theater District, Manhattan