I can’t speak highly enough about the Herald Square Hotel just off Broadway, due west of Madison Square Garden, in Manhattan. It is dripping with history and a reasonable walk to nearly everywhere you’d want to go (often faster than cabs). Prices are reasonable and its family-owned by a car guy! How could it get better?
Abe Purchall and his siblings each inherited a piece of Manhattan real estate in 1965 from a generous relative; his included a weathered apartment building at 19 W. 31 Street. Digging into it’s history he discovered it was home to the original Life magazine founded by John Mitchell in 1883. More like The New Yorker magazine than the LIFE that Henry Luce began in 1936, Mitchell introduced “respectable humor” and a fashion theme that inspired the glamorous “Gibson Girls” a fantasy of illustrator Charles Dana Gibson. Gibson later became the editor. As today’s New Yorker magazine, leading artists appeared on Life’s covers. Norman Rockwell’s work appeared there 28 times.
Interior of a Queen bedroom at the Herald Square Hotel in Manhattan.
Purchall discovered archives in the building with these cover illustrations and now exhibits dozens of them throughout the halls of what is today the massively restored Herald Square Hotel, where you “Spend a Night, Not a Fortune” So read’s Abe’s calling card. Prices fluctuate based on size and season from $130 to $300.
While in New York this week attending RM Auctions ‘Art of the Automobile’ at Sotheby’s Olson will be staying at the historic Herald Square Hotel.
For more information on the Herald Square Hotel visit their website.