Hotel St. George

Occupying a full city block, the St. George Hotel (now St. George Residence) was built as a complex of seven buildings between 1885 and 1929 (with the later and tallest section designed by famed Art Deco architect Emery Roth). The complex took up the whole block bounded by Clark, Hicks, Pineapple, and Henry Streets. Once the largest hotel in New York, the hotel featured the largest banquet ballroom, the Colorama Ballroom, and the world's largest saltwater pool.

This famous location for celebrities and politicians reached its heyday from the 1920s until the 1950s, though the pool remained popular into the 1960s, even as the hotel's popularity waned. By the 1970s, a topless bar called the Wild Fyre occupied some of the ground floor.

Tragically, a fire in 1995 destroyed the original hotel buildings, the only ones in the complex that were still utilized as a hotel. The large 1920s tower was turned into condos in the 1980s. 60 Pineapple Street was converted to a co-op building in 1984, and the rest of the complex is now used as a student residence for those attending a handful of nearby New York City universities.