NYC's Marriott Marquis Was The Hotel Piccadilly In 1953

September 15, 2009 at 8:53 AM | by JetSetCD | Comments (0)

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:
Look at how fancy the Hotel Piccadilly is; doesn't it just remind you of London? It's home to the famous Piccadilly Circus Lounge, and "New York's smorgasbord sensation," the Scandia restaurants. 600 rooms with private baths and radios for your glitzy New York stay, and televisions are available. Only $4.50 for a single room and $7 a double means more money for stepping out on Broadway.

The Hotel Piccadilly today...

Today:
The Piccadilly at 227 West 45th Street, or we should say the site of the Hotel Piccadilly, is now what we know as the Marriot Marquis, with room rates from $220. The Piccadilly, after years of dining and dancing in that Piccadilly Circus Lounge, was torn down in 1982 to make way for the Marriott.

Before its date with the wrecking ball however, a manufacturer of plastics bought the hotel's entire Georgian ballroom for $40,000 and moved it (paintings on the wall, crystal chandelier and all) to his factory in Detroit as a special events room. What a bargain for a total piece of antiques dating to 1928. Who even knows what the ballroom has been up to in Detroit since the 1980s.

[Scan from March 1953 edition of "The New York Visitor"]

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