{"nrhp_refnum":"80002697","name":"Knickerbocker Hotel","other_names":["Newsweek Building","Knickerbocker Building"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"142 W. 42nd St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"New York","county":"Manhattan","state":"NY","lat":40.75543762400008,"lon":-73.98625250699996,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1980-04-11","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A 12-story Beaux-Arts hotel building at the southeast corner of West 42nd Street and Broadway in Times Square, New York City. The exterior was designed in 1901, the hotel opened in October 1906, and the interior was redesigned in 1904.","why_significant":"It is one of the few surviving reminders of the opulence of New York's theater district at the turn of the century. Built as a rival to the Astor Hotel, it hosted prominent society figures and visitors as a luxury hotel. Its exterior remains largely intact and is described as the only surviving link to Times Square's golden past.","narrative":"Occupying the southeast corner of Broadway and West 42nd Street, this twelve-story Beaux-Arts building began as the Knickerbocker Hotel. Marvin & Davis, with consultant Bruce Price, designed the exterior in 1901 in a French Renaissance manner, using red brick, Indiana limestone and terra-cotta, with a steep mansard roof. Construction stopped in 1904 after financial disputes and resumed in 1905, when Trowbridge & Livingston redesigned the interior. The hotel opened on October 24, 1906, with 573 guest rooms and commissioned artworks, and counted Enrico Caruso and George M. Cohan among its guests. Prohibition closed it in 1920, and Charles Platt converted it to offices, later known as the Newsweek Building. The interiors were largely stripped, and the lower two floors were altered for stores. The upper exterior still looks much as it did in 1906, and it survives as a link to Times Square's early theater-district glamour after the Astor Hotel was lost.","period_of_significance":"1900-","architect_builder":"Exterior: Marvin & Davis, with Bruce Price as consultant; interior: Trowbridge & Livingston","architectural_style":"Beaux-Arts","criteria":[],"status_note":"Divided into small offices, many currently vacant; the owner plans conversion to mixed commercial and residential space. Lower two floors altered for commercial use.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:50:42.928021-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NY/80002697.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80002697/a790407cd6-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80002697/a790407cd6-1600.webp","licence":"CC0","author":"Jim.henderson","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:6_Times_Square_42_morning_red_brick_jeh.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Jim.henderson</a>, <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:6_Times_Square_42_morning_red_brick_jeh.jpg"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"08001034","name":"Garment Center Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/new-york/garment-center-historic-district-08001034/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75319668","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knickerbocker_Hotel","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4642538"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/new-york/manhattan/knickerbocker-hotel-80002697/"}