The Sherry-Netherland is a 38-story
apartment hotel
An apartment hotel or aparthotel (also residential hotel, or extended-stay hotel) is a serviced apartment complex that uses a hotel-style booking system. It is similar to renting an apartment, but with no fixed contracts and occupants can "chec ...
located at 781
Fifth Avenue on the corner of
East 59th Street in the
Upper East Side
The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the wes ...
neighborhood of
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
. It was designed and built by
Schultze & Weaver Schultze & Weaver was an architecture firm established in New York City in 1921. The partners were Leonard Schultze and S. Fullerton Weaver.
History
Leonard B. Schultze was born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 5, 1877. He was educated at the Cit ...
with
Buchman & Kahn. The building is high, and was noted as the tallest apartment-hotel in New York City when it opened.
The building is located in the
Upper East Side Historic District, created in 1981.
Features
![Sherry-Netherland New York January 2016](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Sherry-Netherland_New_York_January_2016.jpg)
The building houses 165 apartments that were converted to
co-op
A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...
s in 1954. There are only 50 hotel rooms and suites, but in the tower above the 24th floor there are single apartments to a floor. The
Neo-Romanesque
Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to ...
/
Neo-Gothic
Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...
roofline with
gargoyle
In architecture, and specifically Gothic architecture, a gargoyle () is a carved or formed grotesque with a spout designed to convey water from a roof and away from the side of a building, thereby preventing it from running down masonry walls ...
s disguises the
water tower
A water tower is an elevated structure supporting a water tank constructed at a height sufficient to pressurize a distribution system for potable water, and to provide emergency storage for fire protection. Water towers often operate in conju ...
.
History
The site had been occupied since the early 1890s by the
Hotel New Netherland, designed by
William Hume for
William Waldorf Astor
William Waldorf "Willy" Astor, 1st Viscount Astor (31 March 1848 – 18 October 1919) was an American-British attorney, politician, businessman (hotels and newspapers), and philanthropist. Astor was a scion of the very wealthy Astor family of ...
, a member of the prominent
Astor family
The Astor family achieved prominence in business, society, and politics in the United States and the United Kingdom during the 19th and 20th centuries. With ancestral roots in the Italian Alps region of Italy by way of Germany,
the Astors settled ...
. The building that was to replace it would occupy the same footprint and frontage on Fifth Avenue.
Demolition began in the early winter of 1926, and construction began before the year was out, but the upper floors suffered a spectacular fire when wooden scaffolding caught alight on April 12, 1927 before the building was completed. The fire burned for 12 hours and flames were said to have been visible from
Long Island. It ignited a debate in the press concerning the ability of the available technology to put out fires in high-rise buildings.
At the time of the hotel's construction, the
Vanderbilt mansion, diagonally across Fifth Avenue, was being demolished. High relief carved limestone panels by
Karl Bitter
Karl Theodore Francis Bitter (December 6, 1867 – April 9, 1915) was an Austrian-born American sculptor best known for his architectural sculpture, memorials and residential work.
Life and career
The son of Carl and Henrietta Bitter, he was ...
from the Vanderbilt's ''
porte-cochere'' and ornamental
frieze
In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...
roundels from that mansion were installed in the Sherry's classicizing
groin-vaulted lobby, where massive marble-veneered pilasters with gilded Italian Renaissance capitals articulate walls paneled in small rectangles, Jacobean-fashion. Because of Prohibition, the Sherry was designed with smaller public restaurant square footage than other pre-war hotels.
In March 1927, construction was almost completed and the property was turned over to Louis Sherry, Inc., a subsidiary of Boomer-duPont Properties Corporation. Lucius Boomer was a noted hotel operator and was also affiliated with the
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
The Waldorf Astoria New York is a luxury hotel and condominium residence in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. The structure, at 301 Park Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets, is a 47-story Art Deco landmark designed by architects Schult ...
, while
Louis Sherry
Louis Sherry (1855 in St. Albans, Vermont – 1926) was an American restaurateur, caterer, confectioner and hotelier during the Gilded Age and early 20th century. His name is typically associated with an upscale brand of candy and ice cream, and ...
was a noted restaurateur, famous for ice creams and other confections, and had run a hotel and restaurant,
Sherry's
''Sherry's'' was a restaurant in New York City. It was established by Louis Sherry in 1880 at 38th Street and Sixth Avenue. In the 1890s, it moved to West 37th Street, near Fifth Avenue.
By 1898 it had moved to the corner of 44th Street and Fifth ...
, at 44th Street and Fifth Avenue, closing it soon after
Prohibition
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcohol ...
. Sherry had died before his name became associated with the new venture.
In 1949, the hotel was sold to
Floyd Odlum
Floyd Bostwick Odlum (March 30, 1892 – June 17, 1976) was an American lawyer and industrialist. He has been described as "possibly the only man in the United States who made a great fortune out of the Depression".
Life and career
After strug ...
and Boyd Hatch's
Atlas Corporation
The Atlas Corporation is an American investment firm that was formed in 1928. Atlas invested in and managed a number of major US companies during the 20th century and has a number of investments in natural resources.
History
Atlas corporation wa ...
.
When the
New York City Landmarks Commission created the
Upper East Side Historic District on May 19, 1981, the Sherry-Netherland was included within its boundaries.
In 2014, the lobby ceiling was restored by Evergreene Architectural Arts. The frescoes on the ceiling were based on
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual a ...
's frescoes in
Cardinal Bibbienna's Loggetta at the
Apostolic Palace
The Apostolic Palace ( la, Palatium Apostolicum; it, Palazzo Apostolico) is the official residence of the pope, the head of the Catholic Church, located in Vatican City. It is also known as the Papal Palace, the Palace of the Vatican and t ...
in
Vatican City
Vatican City (), officially the Vatican City State ( it, Stato della Città del Vaticano; la, Status Civitatis Vaticanae),—'
* german: Vatikanstadt, cf. '—' (in Austria: ')
* pl, Miasto Watykańskie, cf. '—'
* pt, Cidade do Vati ...
. The style was recreated by artist Joseph Aruta in the 1920s.
See also
*
References
Notes
External links
Official website*
The Sherry-Netherlands Hotel Fire
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sherry Netherland
Hotel buildings completed in 1927
Hotels established in 1927
Skyscraper hotels in Manhattan
Upper East Side
Fifth Avenue
1927 establishments in New York City
59th Street (Manhattan)