Hotels on Broadway at Madison Square

Old hotels on west side Broadway facing Madison Square, north from near 23rd Street. Source: Photographic views of New York City, from the collections of the New York Public Library.

Of great value in this photo is the Hoffman House under construction (enlargement on the right), which occurred in 1864. In 1870 the building on the southwest corner joined the hotel. The building was renovated with the addition of a sixth floor, in the form of a mansard roof.

The Fifth Avenue Hotel, opened 1859, is shown occupying the 23rd St. to 24th St. frontage. One of the stores in the ground floor was occupied by the Dunlap & Co. Hatters since 1859. On April 22, 1871, the company announced in the New York Herald, their removal from the Fifth Avenue Hotel to a larger store at 174 Fifth Avenue (built in the Venetian Gothic style). They had another store at 589 Broadway, opposite the Metropolitan Hotel. The place was then occupied by the Knox the Hatter until 1908.

Worth Monument, Worth House and the fenced Madison Square Park are to the right. The Albemarle Hotel, on the northwest corner of West 24th Street, opened in 1860. The St. James Hotel is on the corner of 26th St. It was demolished in 1896. The building on the left, on the junction of Broadway and 5th Avenue, is the site where the Flatiron was built in 1901-1902.