Hotel

Greenwich Village, New York, New York

1996

This is a design for a 120 room hotel and a new urban square. The design takes as its inspiration the many traditional brick and brownstone mid-rise buildings in the surrounding neighborhood of Greenwich Village. The hotel includes a beautiful clock tower that receives a view along 4th Avenue. The tower establishes itself as a new architectural landmark in the city. The building’s new edifice has many other handsome features including a grand arched entrance, a colonnaded roof terrace and elegant classical moldings throughout the facade.

A new square is developed in front of the hotel, providing a gathering place to behold the building and tower. The new square includes an Off-Broadway theater ticket kiosk, an existing subway entrance, public art and the entrance to a new covered arcade connecting the square to Broadway, one block to the west.

The hotel is organized around a central courtyard, allowing natural light to flow into all the surrounding guestrooms and down into the hotel lobby located below the courtyard. A subterranean Off-Broadway theater operates below the hotel lobby. The floorplan of the building is formal and is comprised of simple and nameable shapes. Any irregular shapes, that might be expected due to the irregular shape of the site, are absorbed in unimportant spaces like service. The end result is a well-ordered and intentional building.