The Park Sheraton Hotel in 1953: In-Room TVs at No Extra Charge
We devote more than enough ink to Manhattan Hotels, but what about the days when hotels first started tuning their cool? Thanks to an old tourist brochure from 1953, we're exploring back in the day versus today, for NYC hotels.
Back in the day:
Oh my gosh! The dandy Park Sheraton Hotel at 202 West 56th Street now has television in every room, and it won't even cost a slid tip to the bellhop. There's 1,450 rooms in this baby opened in 1927, but still a chance that you might bump into famous faces like residents Jackie Gleason, Mae West, and Eleanor Roosevelt. Be sure to order a Manhattan in the famous Mermaid Room, and enjoy washing up with "running ice water."
The Park Sheraton today...
Today:
The Park Sheraton entered mobster murder history a few years after this ad, when, in 1957, mob honcho Albert Anastasia was shot during a card game.
No longer a Sheraton, the hotel was an Omni for a while and is now simply The Park Central Hotel with rates from $119—a huge leap from the standard $3-$5 room rates of Manhattan in the mid-'50s.
A $60-million dollar renovation in 1999 has erased much of the hotel's past and the Hooters at street-level doesn't quite evoke the glamorous past, but the building has at least polished up by devoting some space to The Manhattan Club, a luxury time-share property.
[Scan from March 1953 edition of "The New York Visitor"]
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