The History of the Martinique - Part 2

The Roaring Twenties, also known as the Jazz Age, was an exciting time in New York City. Prohibition, the “Charleston, and the inimitable Flapper were in the daily headlines. One newspaper article of the time described the flapper as such: “Take two bare knees, two rolled stockings, two flapping galoshes, one short skirt, one lipstick, one powder puff, 33 cigarettes, and a boyfriend with a flask. Season with a pinch of salt and dash of pep, and cover all with some spicy sauce, and you will have the flapper”.

Broadway in the 1890s was said to have a “cham­pagne sparkle.” “All the world came to Broadway to shop, to dine, to flirt, to find amusement, and to meet acquaintances,” wrote Henry Collins Brown, curator of the Museum of the City of New York. The Hotel Martinique opened in 1900 amidst the boom of hotel and theater life on Broadway. The Metropolitan Opera stood close by on 39th Street and a series of other fine hotels reached up to Times Square.

Shortly after the Hotel Martinique opened, plans to open Pennsylvania Station were announced and Macy’s opened on Herald Square while the PATH extended to 33rd Street. It was the perfect time for William R. H. Martin, owner and namesake of the Hotel Martinique, to submit the plans to double the size of the Hotel Mar­tinique. Martin hired the Hotel Martinique’s original architect, the renowned Henry Hardenbergh who also designed the Dakota Apartments, the original Waldorf Astoria Hotels and the Plaza Hotel.

On December 21, 1910, the enlarged Hotel Martinique opened with a total of 600 rooms. As a line of elegantly dressed guests arrived in horse drawn carriages at this Beaux Arts masterpiece they were immediately im­pressed. Guests entered into a vast lobby, which also featured an inspiring mosaic-tile floor and an 18-story spiral staircase, both of which are still very much intact today. The lobby proudly displayed a stunning, large, floor standing, historic clock. It was built in the 15th Century T.H. Crawford, Royal Clockmaker to King James I-King of Scots.