(Former) Aberdeen Hotel

STATUS Designated Individual Landmark

17 West 32nd Street, (aka 17-21 West 32nd Street)

CLIENT: Old Colony Company

ARCHITECT: Harry B. Mulliken

DATE: 1902-04

STYLE: Beaux-Arts

Hotel

Designated: January 30, 2001

*The Aberdeen Hotel was built in 1902-04 as an apartment hotel to the designs of architect Harry B. Mulliken for the Old Colony Company, a real estate development firm. At that time, the Herald Square area was a center of entertainment with theaters, restaurants, clubs, and hotels, as well as a major transportation hub, while Fifth Avenue in the Thirties was developing as a major shopping district. In 1912, the hotel’s suites were subdivided and it began to accept transient guests; during the 1920s, the Aberdeen became one of the first hotels in the city to admit women travelers unaccompanied by men without subjecting them to strict rules. The brick and limestone structure is a significant example of an ornate, early-twentieth-century, Beaux-arts style apartment hotel building. Notable features include the rusticated stone base, the elaborate sculptural entryway with oversized Atlantes, the projecting central bay of windows with decorative metal spandrel panels, and the broken pediment that surmounts the central bay at the tenth story. The exterior of the hotel remains largely intact.

*Landmarks Preservation Commission Designation Report

STATUS Designated Individual Landmark

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