Hotel Edison is at 228 West 47th Street in

Midtown Manhattan Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan and serves as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Buildi ...

, New York City. Opened in 1931, it is part of the Triumph Hotels 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 inventi ...

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 ...

of the Hotel Pennsylvania 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 A ballroom or ballhall is a large room inside a building, the primary purpose of which is holding large formal parties called balls. Traditionally, most balls were held in private residences; many mansions and palaces, especially historic ...

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 ''T ...

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 and her orchestra hosted an evening broadcast on WOR from the Hotel Edison. Parker would open the show with the glass harp (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 was a band leader at the hotel when he heard from Bill Randle about a trio. This led the signing of Dorsey Burnette,

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 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 in London, originally ...

. He secured a contract for the trio with GAC ( General Artists Corporation) and with the Coral division of

Decca Records Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, Jack Kapp, American Decca's first president, and Milton Rackmil, who later became American Decca's president. ...

. The hallway walking scene preceding Luca Brasi'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''. Neil Simon's 2001 play '' 45 Seconds from Broadway'' is set in the hotel's cafe. Michael Keaton 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