Hotel Wolcott

The Hotel Wolcott is a hotel at 4 West 31st Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, in the Midtown South neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Constructed between 1902 and 1904 by developer William C. Dewey, it was designed by John H. Duncan in the French Beaux-Arts and neoclassical styles. The hotel's namesake was Henry Roger Wolcott, a businessman, politician, and philanthropist. The hotel is a New York City designated landmark.

The hotel building is 12 stories tall. Its facade is largely made of red brick and limestone, with elaborate decorations. The facade is divided vertically into six bays and horizontally into a two-story base, a six-story midsection, a transitional story, and a three-story mansard roof. The hotel originally contained several ground-floor amenity areas for guests, including a neo-Grec lobby, reception room, and ballroom. The upper floors are arranged in an "H" shape and originally contained various suites and rooms, which have been rearranged over the years into 160 guestrooms.

Dewey acquired the site in 1902. The hotel opened on March 1, 1904, several months behind schedule, and Dewey had lost the Wolcott to foreclosure by that September. The Wolcott was operated by numerous individuals during the early 20th century, including William and Julius Manger of Manger Hotels during the 1920s. Over the years, it was popular with travelers, though the Wolcott also had permanent residents such as Isadora Duncan, James Buchanan Duke, Doris Duke, Edith Wharton, Mark Twain, and Henry Miller. The Wolcott had declined into a single room occupancy hotel by 1975, when the Erlich family bought it and made numerous renovations. The Wolcott was known as a budget hotel in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, then served as a temporary shelter in the 2020s.

The Wolcott is on the south side of 31st Street, between Broadway and Fifth Avenue, in the Midtown South neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, at the southern edge of the Koreatown neighborhood. The land lot is nearly square and measures around 9,500 square feet (880 m²), with a frontage of 97 feet (30 m) and a depth of 98.75 feet (30.10 m). The Grand Hotel is on the same block to the west, while the Wilbraham is on the same block to the south. Other nearby buildings include the Marble Collegiate Church and the old Holland House to the south, Gilsey House to the southwest, the Aberdeen Hotel (17-21 West 32nd Street) to the north, and the Colony Club building and the Church of the Transfiguration to the southeast.

During the mid-19th century, the stretch of Fifth Avenue between 23rd Street and 42nd Street contained brownstones and mansions for some of New York City's wealthiest residents, as well as churches. Many hotels and social clubs opened in what is now NoMad following the opening of the Fifth Avenue Hotel in the 1850s, followed by apartment hotels, apartment buildings, Broadway theaters, and stores in the 1870s. The area's wealthiest residents moved uptown in the 1880s, but the neighborhood remained fashionable for clubs, hotels, and apartment hotels.

The building was designed by John Hemenway Duncan, the architect of Grant's Tomb in Upper Manhattan. It is largely designed in the French Beaux-Arts style, with large decorative elements that were characteristic of that style. The structure is 12 stories high and has light courts facing east and west, giving it an "H" shape.

The Wolcott has a limestone and brick facade, with elaborate decorations. The facade is symmetrical and is divided vertically into six bays; the two center bays comprise the main entrance. It is split horizontally into a two-story base, six-story midsection, and two-story capital. Most of the original facade decorations remain intact, but most of the original wooden windows have been replaced with one-over-one metal sash windows. The northern elevation of the facade is the only side with ornamentation; the western and eastern elevations have plain brick facades with a small number of windows.

The base is clad with rusticated blocks of stone. There is an arch at the center of the double-height ground story, with a pair of metal-and-glass doors within the arch, topped by a transom window. In front of the entrance doorways is a terrace that is raised slightly above the ground, with a short stone partition wall extends from the facade on either side of the terrace. A marquee with a skylight and recessed lights is cantilevered over the main entrance, above which is an oversized cartouche and an ornate keystone. To the east (left) of the main entrance, there is a metal-and-glass door, a ramp leading to an automatic sliding door, and a service entrance. To the west (right) is a wood-and-glass door with a semicircular glass pane above, followed by two of the original sash windows. There is a recessed areaway in front of the westernmost windows. Over the years, a metal sign with the hotel's name, security cameras, and an air-conditioner have been added to the ground floor. There are windows on the second floor, topped by a cornice that separates the base and midsection.