What Goes Around Comes Around

The Grand Hyatt hotel, adjacent to Grand Central Terminal on West 42nd Street, is a renovated version of the old Commodore Hotel, designed by Warren & Wetmore, and constructed by its general contractor the Fuller Company in 1919. Upwards of 28 stories, the hotel was constructed with an H-shaped floor plan and a brick-and-terracotta façade, with the first three stories clad in Indiana Limestone. The lobby resembled an Italian courtyard, surrounded by an arcade with a mezzanine above it. When the hotel opened, it had the largest hotel lobby in the world, including with a large palm tree in its center, rising nearly to the ceiling.​

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The Commodore Hotel operated until 1976, when it closed due to declining profits. In January 1976, then-mayor Abraham Beame proposed a tax abatement to encourage commercial and industrial development in New York City.

Burgeoning real estate developer Donald J. Trump, who had teamed up with the hotel chain Hyatt to take over the Commodore and renovate it into the Grand Hyatt, was the first developer to request a tax abatement under Beame’s program. This tax credit became the subject of controversy and even a lawsuit (alleging, unsuccessfully, that the tax abatement violated the Constitution of New York – see Wein v. Beame, 43 N.Y.2d 326 (1977)). The development of the Grand Hyatt also pinned the 30-year-old Trump as a savvy, aggressive salesman “reshaping the skyline of Manhattan”.​

The extensive renovations for the Grand Hyatt were performed between 1978 and 1980, creating a full-envelope glass facade, a three-story atrium and a restaurant cantilevered over a sidewalk, and keeping the Commodore’s original ballroom with its stucco and neoclassical columns. Its design has not been uniformly embraced by the architectural community. At the time, Paul Goldberger of the NY Times commented that “it is too bad that there was no willingness to consider a design in some material other than glass,” and that “[i]t is the sort of flashy hotel one would expect in Atlanta or Houston, but certainly not in New York.” The Architectural Guidebook to New York City refers to the facade as a “mirror box” and an “utter and inexcusable outrage”.

In 2021, following the city’s long-awaited Midtown East rezoning, the City Council voted to approve the redevelopment of the Grand Hyatt Hotel by developers RXR Realty and TF Cornerstone and designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP. Termed the “Project Commodore”, the design is intended to be harmonious with that of Grand Central, including by offering outdoor terraces that will flow into the upper level of Grand Central Terminal, creating a consistent street wall.

Set to rise to 85 stories, the new structure will dwarf the neighboring Chrysler Building, the subject of blog post #3.

CREDITS

Morrone, Francis, The Architectural Guidebook to New York City, Gibbs Smith, 2009.

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Blum, Howard, “Trump: Development of a Manhattan Developer”, The New York Times, August 26, 1980.

Goldberger, Paul, “The Commodore Being Born Again”, The New York Times, January 11, 1978.

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“3 Lawmakers Are Critical of Commodore Tax Relief”, The New York Times, April 26, 1976.