The Jane Hotel (New York City, New York)

 hotel, interesting place, 1908_construction

6-story Neo-Georgian hotel completed in 1908. Designed by William A. Boring (of the firm of Boring & Tilton), the renowned architect of the Ellis Island Immigration Station, with structural elements by the Guastavino Fireproof Tile Co. The hotel was built as the American Seaman's Friend Society Sailors' Home, a hotel for sailor, with cabin-like rooms. It is clad in red brick and stone, with a distinctive octagonal tower at the southwest corner, topped with a lighthouse complete with beacon. The lighthouse and beacon on top were removed from the tower when the YMCA purchased the building in 1944. The first floor is set above a raised basement, and has round-arched windows with stone band courses above and below. The entrance on Jane Street is reached by a stoop, and framed by stone columns supporting an entablature with a pair of carved anchors on top. Another stone band course runs along the base of the top floors, and the roof is crowned with a boldly-projecting modillioned cornice, above which the corner tower rises another floor. The building featured a chapel, a concert hall, and a bowling alley.

In 1912, 100 survivors of the Titanic were housed here following their rescue. The surviving crew held a memorial service at the hotel four days after the ship sank. Only a decade later it had become the Jane West Hotel and little by little it degraded. By the 1960s it had become an SRO hotel called Riverview West filled with drug addicts, prostitutes and other shady characters. Sadly neglected the building was derelict and vermin-ridden when it was put up for sale in 2007.

In 2008, it reopened as the Jane Hotel by developers Richard Born and Ira Drukier of BD Hotels. Many of the current accommodations are only 50 square feet in size and share communal bath facilities. Only the captains cabins have their own facilities plus a river view and/or terrace. In 2009 the former auditorium became The Ballroom, a trendy and loud hotspot for nightlife. It closed a couple years later, replaced by the Jane Street Theater.

www.thejanenyc.com/
hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.c033529567?urlappend=%3Bseq=76%...