Trump’s approach worked, and the Commodore reopened in 1980 as the Grand Hyatt, with a shiny glass facelift courtesy of architects Gruzen Samton and Der Scutt. Trump argued that if he was not allowed to take over the hotel, the Commodore would be “boarded up,” becoming not just an eyesore on 42nd Street, but a potent symbol that New York had hit rock bottom. All he needed in return was a sweetheart sale price from the railroad-under $10 million-and a 50-year tax abatement from the city. He had a plan to strip the Commodore down to its bones, rebuild it for $100 million, and get the Hyatt corporation-which then owned no Manhattan hotels-to run everything. Trump, whose father, Fred, had built upward of 22,000 units of housing in the outer boroughs, was itching not only to enter the Manhattan real estate market, but to do so as audaciously as possible. The previous April, a massage parlor in the hotel had been evicted on the grounds that it was a “ sex palace.” John Koskien, a representative of the hotel’s management company, said at the time that “the only thing that could save the Commodore is a major turnaround in labor and economic conditions”-or a knight in shining armor.Ī young real estate entrepreneur named Donald J. The 2,000-room Commodore, billed as the “most wonderful hotel in the world,” was part of a boom in accommodations in New York many of the same revelers had opened the Hotel Pennsylvania on Seventh Avenue just four days earlier.īy 1976 the Commodore was rundown and a little seedy. On opening night, nearly 3,000 people gathered in the Moorish-inspired grand ballroom on 42nd Street-among them Mayor John Hylan and opera star Enrico Caruso-to celebrate. The hotel, a fading gem next to the even more dilapidated Grand Central Terminal, had opened on January 29, 1919, as an important part of the New York Central railroad’s ambitious Terminal City project. Louis, Missouri, settled his bill at the front desk of the Hotel Commodore and became the final guest to leave the premises.
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