The Belvedere Hotel

 hotel, high-rise, Art Deco (architecture), 1926_construction

194-foot, 16-story Art-Deco hotel completed in 1926. Designed by Bertram N. Marcus as an apartment building, it was converted to a hotel in 1961, when a 1-story wing was extended up to 49th Street. The wing contains the hotel's Belvedere Cafe and Churrascaria Plataforma restaurant. Its facade on 49th Street is surfaced in white stone with a black granite water table. Near the east end are three pairs of glass-and-wood doors with transoms opening into the restaurant; at the west end is a secondary hotel entrance, with recessed glass-and-metal doors with sidelights and transom, set below a projecting white concrete canopy. The facade of the 1-story north wing is capped by a stone cornice.

The main hotel building, on 48th Street, is clad in buff-colored brick above a 1-story base that projects out from the facade. The base is clad in multi-hued grey-beige brick with a grey granite water table. The entire south facade is 14 bays wide, with the main entrance in the middle two bays. It has two sets of glass-and-metal doors with sidelights, set below a grey granite band, surmounted by a silver-and-black, suspended metal canopy; the front of the canopy steps up twice toward the center, with a rounded middle section on top. Flanking the entrance is a bay on each side with a large circular window framed in white stone; wall lanterns are mounted on either side of each circle.

To the east are five bays with round-arches, each slightly recessed and with beige stone infill and containing two smaller round-arched windows; these pairs of windows are framed by slender, spiral colonnettes with grey-painted bases and green-painted Corinthian capitals. Delicate, decorative moldings cap the two small pairs of arches, and the enclosing main arch of each bay is lined by a white stone molding ornamented with spaced bands of colorful terra-cotta carvings of various animals, capped by a colorful keystone with a heraldic shield. Within the top of the arch, above the paired windows, are gilded medallions bearing eagles. The bases of the arches, below the windows, have wavy ribs and simple, gold, heraldic shields. At the 2nd & 3rd bays from the east, the western window is replaced by a round-arched metal service door.

To the west of the main entrance are five bays, with four more arches with the same colorful moldings. The two closest to the entrance and the 2nd bay from the west end have the same infill, ornament and windows, except that these windows are longer, extending down to almost the sidewalk level. The 3rd bay from the west has entirely black metal infill, including a round-arched metal service door. A slightly-recessed glass door is inserted between the two arched bays closest to the main entrance, topped by a tall splayed lintel with a large, green keystone in the form of a grotesque mask. Another narrow, recessed niche is located between the 3rd & 4th arches from the middle, with a matching keystone, but it has brick infill and a wall lantern instead of a door. The west end bay has a stainless-steel double service door and a single metal service door. The entire 1-story base is capped by a broad double stone cornice framing brick in the middle, with horizontal panels of ornamental terra-cotta tiles with sunburst shapes at each bays, and stone-outlined panels at each pier, each of which has a single, round terra-cotta tile in the center, with a flower design. The canopy over the entrance interrupts this band, except for upper cornice part.

The upper floors are set back behind the base, the five bays on each end recessed further than the middle four. Every bay has a double-window with a white stone sill and brick lintel, separated by black iron mullions. The sills are joined across the two middle bays. The exception is at the 2nd floor, where the middle four bays have colorful spiral colonnettes with Corinthian capitals in place of mullions, and are topped by beige terra-cotta round-arches with red-and green-colored floral patterns. There is a central panel with similar ornament on the pier between the two middle bays, topped by its own matching round-arch. On the piers flanking the two middle bays are a pair of gilded eagles serving as bases for projecting flagpoles. All of the brick piers run uninterrupted up the facade, with the bays slightly recessed between them, except for the center pier, where the joined sills cross it; it also has recessed brick panels between the windows at each floor. Black air-conditioning vents have been cut into and below the sills of many of the bays; others have protruding air-conditioning units.

At the top of the 14th floor the piers have projecting caps with pairs of round-arches at the bottom. The top two floors have a shallow setback, with each bay at the 16th floor capped by a round-arched terra-cotta panel. Between these panels, the piers are topped by protruding eagle gargoyles (except for the center pier). At the end wings, the roof line is crenelated, with a stone coping, while the middle section has a patterned brickwork parapet between the piers. At the middle of the roof is a tall, brick-clad mechanical housing with three vertical openings on the west, south, and east faces, with a finial at each corner, and topped by a steep-sloped copper mansard. There is also a brick chimney at the middle of each end of the roof.

The west and east elevations are clad in reddish-brown brick, with buff-colored brick at the front edges. There are two bays of single-windows, and thin lines of lighter brick outline both window bays and the middle area at the upper floors. The rear, north-facing facade overlooking the 1-story north extension is also clad in reddish-brown brick. It has 14 bays of double-windows, and a setback above the 14th floor, matching the one on the south facade. Most of the bays of protruding air-conditioning units.

The Belvedere Hotel has 345 guest rooms.

www.belvederehotelnyc.com