Martha Washington Hotel ARCHITECT: Robert W. Gibson DATE: 1901-03 STYLE: Renaissance Revival Martha Washington Hotel was developed by the Women’s Hotel Company for the purpose of providing comfortable, independent living arrangements for middle-class working women. This company was formed by a group of people active in the Charity Organization Society to fill an unmet need for housing for working women. This building displays the popular Renaissance Revival style using classical elements such as rustication, columns, strong cornices with dentils and modillions, Palladian windows and quoins, to give a sense of dignity to this important structure. The hotel continued to provide women-only facilities until 1998, when it was converted to a co-ed hotel.

Martha Washington Hotel ca. 1907 Designed by Robert Gibson and completed in 1903, the twelve-story Martha Washington was designed to house 400-500 “business women” and to provide specifically for this groups’ needs, at 30 East 30th Street. From the start, the hotel was conceived as a profit-making venture, organized and executed by the Women’s Hotel Company (incorporated in 1897), and funded by investments from New Yorkers such as William Schermerhorn, John D. Rockefeller, Helen Gould, and Olivia Sage (the wife of Russell Sage and founder of the Russell Sage Foundation). In practice, women were responsible for the success of the project. By the time the hotel opened, much of the stock was owned by individual women backing the idea of a women’s hotel. An early promotional brochure describes the Martha Washington as a “world-famous and interesting hostelry … well appointed, thoroughly modern, strictly fireproof and equipped with every facility for the comfort of its guests.” These included a drug store, ladies tailor shop, millinery, manicurist, and newspaper stand. The staff was entirely female, down to the elevator operators. The brochure also highlights the role of women in planning the interior design of the hotel: “woman’s wit has been used to provide the little necessities and comforts so much appreciated by her…” Promotional materials emphasized a unique aspect of the Martha Washington Hotel: Not only was it was intended for professional women, but it was planned without “paternalism or philanthropic idea,” and had “no harassing restrictions…imposed on the hotel guests other than those prevailing in the best hotels.” At the Martha Washington, female residents were afforded the same freedoms allowed their male counterparts. In contrast to the supervisory homes, this women’s hotel was explicitly linked with feminist ideals of independence, the ability to earn one’s own living, and the conscious presentation of white-collar working women as “business women.” It was a success: The building was fully occupied immediately with both permanent and transient guests and 200 more women on a waiting list. The hotel’s philosophy was met with approval by important feminist groups, including the Interurban Women’s Suffrage Council, who made the hotel their headquarters beginning in 1907. The novel hotel caught the public’s eye, so much so that residents complained it had become a tourist attraction, complete with “lectures on megaphones” given atop tour buses.

"Designed by Robert Gibson and completed in 1903, the twelve-story Martha Washington was designed to house 400-500 'business women' and to provide specifically for this groups’ needs, at 30 East 30th Street... By the time the hotel opened, much of the stock was owned by individual women backing the idea of a women’s hotel… At the Martha Washington, female residents were afforded the same freedoms allowed their male counterparts. In contrast to the supervisory homes, this women’s hotel was explicitly linked with feminist ideals of independence, the ability to earn one’s own living, and the conscious presentation of white-collar working women as 'business women.' It was a success: the building was fully occupied immediately with both permanent and transient guests and 200 more women on a waiting list. The hotel’s philosophy was met with approval by important feminist groups, including the Interurban Women’s Suffrage Council, who made the hotel their headquarters beginning in 1907." For more on the Martha Washington and other Industrial Era female-only housing, check out this article by Nina E. Harkrader in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History

The growth of manufacturing and industry in Northeastern cities during the early to mid-19th century increased demand for female labor in the United States. The newly arrived women workers were expected to find their own lodging, but there was no precedent for housing single women in cities. So, hotels like the Martha Washington were planned to provide women with safe places to stay.

105 MADISON AVENUE Buchman & Fox 1912-13 Like Madison Square Park, Madison Avenue was named after James Madison, the fourth President of the United States. The Avenue begins at 23rd Street and extends to the Madison Avenue Bridge at 138th Street. When the Manhattan street grid was mandated in 1811, there was no avenue between Fourth (now Park) and Fifth Avenues. Madison Avenue was carved out in the 1840s due to the wide distance between Fourth and Fifth Avenues and in order to create more building lots with avenue frontage. This southern section of Madison Avenue is characterized by its fine assortment of large-scale hotels, lofts and office buildings. The imposing store and loft building is clad entirely in terra-cotta, much like Cass Gilbert’s famed Woolworth Building, which was constructed at the same time. At 20 stories tall, it has a strong presence on Madison Avenue. The structure features Gothic Revival style ornament, with grand arches at the ground level and at the crown.

105 MADISON AVENUE Buchman & Fox 1912-13 Like Madison Square Park, Madison Avenue was named after James Madison, the fourth President of the United States. The Avenue begins at 23rd Street and extends to the Madison Avenue Bridge at 138th Street. When the Manhattan street grid was mandated in 1811, there was no avenue between Fourth (now Park) and Fifth Avenues. Madison Avenue was carved out in the 1840s due to the wide distance between Fourth and Fifth Avenues and in order to create more building lots with avenue frontage. This southern section of Madison Avenue is characterized by its fine assortment of large-scale hotels, lofts and office buildings. The imposing store and loft building is clad entirely in terra-cotta, much like Cass Gilbert’s famed Woolworth Building, which was constructed at the same time. At 20 stories tall, it has a strong presence on Madison Avenue. The structure features Gothic Revival style ornament, with grand arches at the ground level and at the crown.

Today’s Madison Square North neighborhood reflects successive waves of development, the earliest dating to the year Madison Square Park was created—1847. Until very recently, the neighborhood comprised almost exclusively buildings that pre-date 1930. From the park’s opening through the 1920s, Madison Square North evolved from being a fashionable residential enclave to an entertainment district of hotels, clubs, restaurants and theaters, to a commercial hub of offices and mercantile loft buildings. Examples of each are still prominent today, often in startling juxtaposition. The 19th century saw a northward development trend, as new residential neighborhoods were established in response to growing commerce to the south. This pattern repeated itself numerous times up the length of Manhattan. From roughly 1850 to 1865, Madison Square North was fashionable with the city’s elite. Such boldface families as the Stokes, Livingstons, Vanderbilts, and Stewarts (of A.T. Stewart department store fame) were residents. Rowhouse construction, largely built in the popular Italianate style, began first along Broadway and spread to the side streets. Extant rowhouses from this period include two on West 24th Street and four on West 29th Street. After the Civil War, the neighborhood became host to a number of theaters, restaurants, men’s clubs and hotels. The trailblazer in the latter category was the Fifth Avenue Hotel, completed in 1858 on the northwest corner of 23rd Street and Fifth Avenue. The hotel was a social, cultural and political hub until its closure in 1908, at which point it was replaced by the commercial structure at 200 Fifth Avenue. Many hotels also functioned as “bachelor flats” or “apartment hotels” for extended stays. One of the city’s first apartment houses, constructed in 1872 after designs by the noted New York architect George B. Post, still stands at 251 Fifth Avenue. The prevalence of entertainment and commercial ventures on Broadway made it a bustling night-life district. Thus, beginning in the 1890s, Broadway from about 13th to 45th Street became one of the first thoroughfares to be illuminated by electric street lamps and billboards, leading to its lasting moniker “The Great White Way.” By the 1890s and early 1900s, industries including photography, architecture, construction and banking planted roots in the area, constructing commercial high-rises designed in styles such as Gothic Revival, Beaux-Arts and Art Deco. Many of these buildings were also constructed for the wholesale garment industry to initially support the Ladies’ Mile shopping district to the south, which, until they moved to Herald Square in the early 1900s, was home to the R. H. Macy & Co. and B. Altman & Co. department stores. The neighborhood’s growth was spurred on by nationwide industrial trends for ready-to-wear clothing, and later, wholesale household décor. This period of prolific development left a lasting impact, as mercantile loft buildings remain the area’s architectural hallmark. In 2001, the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Madison Square North Historic District, 96 buildings from roughly 25th to 29th Streets between Sixth and Madison Avenues. Community members and preservationists are advocating for an extension to the district, to encompass roughly 374 buildings from 23rd to 34th Streets and Sixth to Park Avenues. This area includes the surviving buildings of Tin Pan Alley on West 28th Street, where the American popular music publishing industry was headquartered from roughly 1890 to 1910.