| Omni Berkshire Place | |
|---|---|
 Madison Avenue, Omni Berkshire Place on right | |
 Interactive map of the Omni Berkshire Place area | |
| General information | |
| Location | Manhattan,New York City, 21 East 52nd St. |
| Coordinates | 40°45′34″N73°58′29″W / 40.75944°N 73.97472°W /40.75944; -73.97472 |
| Opening | 1926 |
| Owner | Omni Hotels |
| Management | Omni Hotels |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Warren & Wetmore |
| Other information | |
| Number of rooms | 395 |
TheOmni Berkshire Place hotel is located at 21 East52nd Street, nearMadison Avenue, inMidtown Manhattan inNew York City. It is owned and operated byOmni Hotels & Resorts. The hotel was also inducted intoHistoric Hotels of America, the official program of theNational Trust for Historic Preservation, in 2010.[1]
Opened in 1926 asThe Berkshire Hotel, it was designed by architectsWarren & Wetmore in theClassical Revival style.[2] It was built as a residential hotel and was part of the "Terminal City" project consisting of hotels and apartment buildings in the area aroundGrand Central Terminal.[3] At the time of construction, it was 10 stories tall, located on a plot measuring 100 by 62 feet (30 by 19 m). Two years later, J.C. and M.G. Mayer leased the hotel for 21 years with plans to renovate it.[4]
The Berkshire Hotel has historic ties toBroadway and the arts.Ethel Merman lived at the property for many years,[5][6] andRodgers and Hammerstein wrote the musicalOklahoma! in a suite that was later named the Rodgers and Hammerstein Suite.[7]Alfred Hitchcock was also a regular.[8][9]
The hotel was for many years the home of an exclusive private dining club founded by drama criticAlexander Woollcott and designed byNorman Bel Geddes. The club was known as the Elbow Room upon its opening in 1938. Its founding members includedHarold Ross,George S. Kaufman,Robert E. Sherwood,Moss Hart,William S. Paley,Raymond Massey, andCedric Hardwicke.[10][11] Later renamed the Barberry Room, it was known as "the most exclusive restaurant in New York".[10] Rodgers and Hammerstein collaborated at a reserved table,Edward R. Murrow dined there each Friday before the airing of hisPerson to Person show, andFrank Sinatra dined there in 1955 with heiressGloria Vanderbilt.[10][12]Marc Connelly,David Sarnoff, andRichard Rodgers continued to be regulars into the 1950s.[10]
Salvador Dalí dined at the Barberry in 1960 and took offense at aWilliam-Adolphe Bouguereau painting in the dining room depicting a satyr surrounded by nymphs. Dalí reportedly considered Bouguereau's nymphs to be bad art and struck a deal with the hotel to trade his own painting of nymphs for the Bouguereau. Dalí returned to the dining room days later and, as well-heeled diners watched and dodged paint, created an abstract impression of nymphs. He used a rubber cap on his head to apply the paint to a seven-foot canvas. The Barberry Room displayed Dalí's nymphs for a time, but it was later relegated to a linen closet. In 1979, theNew York Daily News reported that the Dalí had disappeared.[13][14][15]
The Berkshire Hotel was purchased in 1959 by the Knott Hotels Corporation.[11] Knott subsequently built a 15-story, 158-room addition.[16]
In 1977, the hotel was acquired by Dunfey Hotels, a subsidiary ofAer Lingus,[17] for $9.7 million, becoming the first hotel in New York City to be run by that chain.[18] The new owners evicted Ethel Merman in 1978, stating they did not want permanent residents.[19] Dunfey renovated the hotel at a cost of $9 million[18][20] to designs byPeter Gisolfi Associates and interior architectRoland Jutras.[21] The project involved renovating all of the guest rooms.[20] The refurbished hotel reopened in June 1979[18] asBerkshire Place - A Dunfey Classic Hotel.[14] That year,The New York Times called the structure "a handsome unexceptional building erected in 1926 to the designs of Warren & Wetmore, one of New York's finest architectural firms of the eclectic period".[21] Its restoration was described by media as part of a "building boom" that followed the city'snear-bankruptcy in 1975,[22] as well as part of a general trend of foreign airlines renovating hotels in New York City.[23]
Dunfey Hotels acquired theOmni Hotels chain in 1983 and the hotel was soon after renamedOmni Berkshire Place.[24] Omni bought the Berkshire Place hotel outright in March 1992 for $83.5 million.[25] The hotel was further renovated in 1995 and 2003.[3] During the 1995 renovation, which cost $50 million, the Omni Berkshire Place was downsized from 415 to 395 rooms, and numerous amenities were added to each room. After the renovation, the average guest room was 375 square feet (34.8 m2) and there were 20 handicapped-accessible guest rooms.[26]
In early 2020, due to theCOVID-19 pandemic in New York City, Omni closed the hotel indefinitely and fired 268 staff members.[27] On June 11, 2020, Omni announced that the Omni Berkshire Place would close permanently, though TRT Holdings, owner of Omni Hotels, would retain the property for possible conversion to an office building.[28][29] In October 2021, the owners reversed their plans and reopened the hotel.[30][31] This followed a piece of legislation passed by theNew York City Council in September 2021; the legislation required hotels that closed due to the pandemic to pay severance to their employees if they did not reopen with at least 25 percent of their pre-pandemic staff.[32][33] Omni Hotels president Peter Strebel said: "Paying the severance would have cost more than reopening."[30]
............
