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19 West 31st Street

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19 West 31st Street image

19 West 31st Street
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View looking east on West 31st Street toward the Clinton Hotel, ca. 1975. This wide red brick and limestone structure, designed by Carrère and Hastings, was completed in 1895 as the headquarters of Life Magazine. The highbrow humor publication's presence is still marked by gilded lettering beneath the lintels of the second story windows and Philip Martiny's "Winged Life" sculpture above the main entrance. The magazine was forced from the building by the financial pressures of the Great Depression, and the interior was converted to an apartment hotel in 1936. That later became the Clinton Hotel, an inexpensive single room hotel. After a three-year renovation, the once-proud Life building reopened as the Herald Square Hotel in 1991.

Photos(3)

19 West 31st Street image

19 West 31st Street

Sign for Fass Café, 19 W. 31st Street, New York City, June 14, 1916. Photographed for Lawrence L. Strauss.
19 West 31st Street image

19 West 31st Street

\[View looking east on West 31st Street toward the Clinton Hotel.]
19 West 31st Street image

19 West 31st Street

Life Building (1893) Primary subject: Herald Square Hotel Formerly Life Building
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