The Whitby is the name of the residential property at 325 West 45th Street in

Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton, is a neighborhood on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is considered to be bordered by 34th Street (or 41st Street) to the south, 59th Street to the north, Eighth Avenue to the eas ...

, New York. The Whitby was designed by architect

Emery Roth Emery Roth ( hu, Róth Imre, July 17, 1871 – August 20, 1948) was an American architect of Hungarian-Jewish descent who designed many of the definitive New York City hotels and apartment buildings of the 1920s and 1930s, incorporating Beaux-A ...

and built by

Bing & Bing Bing & Bing was one of the most important apartment real estate developers in New York City in the early 20th century. The firm was founded by Leo S. Bing (1874–1956) and his brother, Alexander M. Bing (1878–1959). The brothers often worked w ...

general contractors. It was originally commissioned as a

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a ref ...

by The Gresham Realty Company in 1924 and opened for business on October 1, 1924."The Whitby New Apartment In Times Square Section", ''The New York Times'', October 1, 1924 The building was converted into a residential

cooperative 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 ...

in 1988 by Premiere Marketing Services. The 10-story dwelling between Eighth and

Ninth In music, a ninth is a compound interval consisting of an octave plus a second. Like the second, the interval of a ninth is classified as a dissonance in common practice tonality. Since a ninth is an octave larger than a second, its ...

Avenues has 215 apartments.

Building history

The building's architect,

, drew inspiration from the

Choragic Monument of Lysicrates The Choragic Monument of Lysicrates near the Acropolis of Athens was erected by the ''choregos'' Lysicrates, a wealthy patron of musical performances in the Theater of Dionysus, to commemorate the prize in the dithyramb contest of the City Diony ...

. The Athenian monument was known to Roth from the reproduction that had featured in the

World's Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordi ...

in Chicago, 1893. Roth also designed

The Beresford The Beresford is a Housing cooperative, cooperative apartment building at 211 Central Park West, between 81st and 82nd Streets, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was constructed in 1929 and was designed by architect Emery ...

and other apartment houses and office blocks in New York. Construction began in 1923. The lobby, while completed with

terrazzo Terrazzo is a composite material, poured in place or precast, which is used for floor and wall treatments. It consists of chips of marble, quartz, granite, glass, or other suitable material, poured with a cementitious binder (for chemical bindi ...

tile, is of modest size, intended to maintain a residential feel and limit access to press and spectators. The construction process took approximately one year and when the building was completed in October 1924 it opened as a hotel, which it remained until the 1980s. Six years after the building opened, New York and the rest of the nation was headed into the economic distress of the Stock Market Crash and World War II. During the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, many of the larger units in the building were subdivided to make them easier to rent. The larger '06-line' and '03-line' one bedroom units were divided into single studio units. As a result, the total number of apartments in the building was expanded by approximately 20 units. This was a fate that fell upon other similar buildings who resorted to unorthodox methods (deferred rent schemes, subdivision of apartments) to remain solvent. Since that time, however, the market for residential real estate in New York City has changed significantly. The Whitby is now one of the most desirable pre-war apartment buildings in

Hell's Kitchen Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton, is a neighborhood on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is considered to be bordered by 34th Street (or 41st Street) to the south, 59th Street to the north, Eighth Avenue to the eas ...

. It converted to a

coop Coop, COOP, Co-op, or ''variation'', most often refers to: * A chicken coop or other enclosure * Cooperative or co-operative ("co-op"), an association of persons who cooperate for their mutual social, economic, and cultural benefit ** Housing co ...

in 1988, meaning that most tenants in the apartments are actually shareholders in the corporation that owns the building. The few units that were not purchased at that time by sponsors or tenants that did not buy into the coop, are currently rent regulated or owned by the 325 W 45 St Owners Corporation, whose board of directors presently manages building operations.

Prominent guests and residents

Because of its central location in the heart of the

Theater District A theater district (also spelled theatre district) is a common name for a neighborhood containing several of a city's theatres. Places *Theater District, Manhattan, New York City *Boston Theater District *Buffalo Theater District *Cleveland Theater ...

, The Whitby has had a large following among theatre professionals.

Doris Day Doris Day (born Doris Mary Kappelhoff; April 3, 1922 – May 13, 2019) was an American actress, singer, and activist. She began her career as a big band singer in 1939, achieving commercial success in 1945 with two No. 1 recordings, " Sent ...

and

Betty Grable Elizabeth Ruth Grable (December 18, 1916 – July 2, 1973) was an American actress, pin-up girl, dancer, model, and singer. Her 42 films during the 1930s and 1940s grossed more than $100 million; for 10 consecutive years (1942–1951) she reign ...

were former residents. Even today, many who call The Whitby home are associated with the performing arts in one way or another. Legendary cryptozoologist,

Ivan T. Sanderson Ivan Terence Sanderson (January 30, 1911 – February 19, 1973) was a British biologist and writer born in Edinburgh, Scotland, who became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Along with Belgian-French biologist Bernard Heuvelmans, Sand ...

called the Whitby his home. The Whitby is approximately across the street from the

Al Hirschfeld Theatre The Al Hirschfeld Theatre, originally the Martin Beck Theatre, is a Broadway theater at 302 West 45th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1924, it was designed by G. Albert Lansburgh in a Moorish an ...

(formerly the Martin Beck Theatre). "

Room 1411 "Room 1411" is a 1928 instrumental composed by Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman and released as a Brunswick 78 by Benny Goodman's Boys. The song was Glenn Miller's first known composition and was an early collaboration between Glenn Miller and Benny ...

" by

Glenn Miller Alton Glen Miller (March 1, 1904 – December 15, 1944) was an American big band founder, owner, conductor, composer, arranger, trombone player and recording artist before and during World War II, when he was an officer in the United States Arm ...

and

Benny Goodman Benjamin David Goodman (May 30, 1909 – June 13, 1986) was an American clarinetist and bandleader known as the "King of Swing". From 1936 until the mid-1940s, Goodman led one of the most popular swing big bands in the United States. His co ...

was named after the suite number where they lived at The Whitby in the late 1920s.

References

External links

"At 90, Still a Haven for Broadway Performers"
by Nicole Craine, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', December 29, 2014 {{DEFAULTSORT:Whitby, The Residential buildings in Manhattan Residential buildings completed in 1924 Emery Roth buildings Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan