Concourse Plaza Hotel

Last updated May 30, 2024

The Concourse Plaza Hotel was a luxury hotel at Grand Concourse and East 161st Street in the Concourse neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City. Once the site of presidential campaign stops and host to major sports stars, it is now a senior citizens' residence owned and operated by the government of New York City.

Halcyon days

Groundbreaking for the 12-story hotel took place in 1922, and it was opened in a lavish ceremony on October 22, 1923. Al Smith, the governor of New York and the guest speaker for the event, praised the hotel by stating, “After seeing this new structure, I am convinced that anything can go in the Bronx.”^[1]

The hotel was within walking distance of Yankee Stadium, which was home to baseball’s New York Yankees and (until 1973) football’s New York Giants. Many star players from the home teams – including Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris of the Yankees and Frank Gifford of the Giants – stayed at the Concourse Plaza, and visiting players would also stay at the hotel.^[2]^[3] Yankees second-baseman Horace Clarke was reportedly the last Yankees player to make the hotel his in-season residence during the 1960s and early 1970s.

The hotel maintained a grand ballroom, four smaller banquet halls, and two meeting/dinner rooms. For years it was the best location in the Bronx for social, business and fraternal events. Tito Puente's band played in the grand ballroom every New Year's Eve for a dance that drew 1200 people. Political campaigns would stop by the hotel for rallies and fund raising events, and one of the most whimsical events occurred when John F. Kennedy, the Democratic Party candidate for the U.S. presidency, was greeted at the hotel on November 5, 1960 with a sign that read “The home of the knishes thinks Jack is delicious.” There were two kitchens in the hotel. The Banquet kitchen was about half a block long. It was quite a sight to see the waiters lined up in the kitchen prepared to serve a banquet, serving spoons or soup ladles in hand. There was a second, kosher kitchen on the north side of the building. On most weekends both kitchens were in full operation, serving many parties. It looked like a scene from Kafka's "Amerika." The caterers also catered off the premises parties in numerous locations. These were served with food prepared at the Concourse Plaza. There is a secret about the hotel. Below the basement was a sub basement, known to very few people. There was a private rifle range there.^[4]

Decline and sale

The hotel began to experience financial difficulties in 1957, when it was purchased by Nassau Management Corporation for $1.25 million. The company was unable to maintain financial control of the property, and it changed hands again in early 1958. At that time the hotel was operated by three groups of people. One group leased and ran the rooms, a second the banquet halls and kitchens, a third the restaurant.^[4]

During the 1960s, problems in the neighborhood surrounding the hotel diminished its value as a lodging location, and by 1968 it was seen as a "welfare hotel" when it began to provide housing to poor families who relied on the New York City government for shelter. In the early 1970s the manager of the rooms was shot and killed by an irate customer. In 1974, the city government purchased the hotel and later transformed the property into a senior citizens residence.^[2]

The hotel was used by director John Cassavetes as a filming location for his 1980 drama Gloria .^[5]

In film

The hotel and its ballroom have played important roles in several films. Marty (1955) - which won 3 Academy Awards including best picture, Ernest Borgnine in the title role won Best Actor in a Leading Performance - and Paddy Chayevsky, who won for Best Writing - Adapted Screenplay.

It was also featured in The Catered Affair (1957) with Ernest Borgnine, Bette Davis, Barry Fitzgerald, Debbie Reynolds and Rod Taylor. It was directed by Richard Brooks and written by Paddy Chayefsky (original play) and Gore Vidal (screenplay).

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161st Street is a short, major thoroughfare in the southern portion of the Bronx. The road is 1.6 miles (2.6 km) long and is a much used access to Yankee Stadium on its north side. The 20th-century Yankee Stadium was on the south side of the street. The road begins in the west at an intersection with Jerome Avenue, a major thoroughfare in the Bronx, and Woodycrest Avenue, a one-way street in the Bronx. The road is one of the widest in the Bronx, until the Sheridan Avenue intersection, where the divided highway merges. East 161st Street ends at Elton Avenue. However, the road continues eastward in parts, ending at Hewitt Place, as a short connector.

The Bronx County Hall of Justice is an American courthouse at 265 East 161st Street, between Sherman and Morris Avenues in the Concourse and Melrose sections of the Bronx in New York City, New York. The ten-story building has 775,000 square feet (72,000 m²) and includes 47 New York Supreme Court and New York City Criminal Court rooms, seven grand jury rooms, and office space for the New York City Department of Correction, New York City Department of Probation, and the district attorney.

Bronx Terminal Market, formerly known as Gateway Center at Bronx Terminal Market, is a shopping mall along the Major Deegan Expressway in Concourse, Bronx, New York. The center encompasses just under one million square feet of retail space built on a 17-acre (69,000 m²) site that formerly held a wholesale fruit and vegetable market as well as the former Bronx House of Detention for Men, south of Yankee Stadium.

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The Lorelei Fountain, also known as the Heinrich Heine Memorial, is a monument located on East 161st Street in the Concourse section of the Bronx, New York City, near the Bronx County Courthouse. It was designed by German sculptor Ernst Herter and created in 1896 out of Italian white marble in Laas, South Tyrol. The fountain was unveiled at its current location in 1899 and is dedicated to German poet and writer Heinrich Heine.

Concourse is a neighborhood in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of the Bronx which includes the Bronx County Courthouse, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, and Yankee Stadium. Its boundaries, starting from the north and moving clockwise, are East 169th Street to the north, Webster Avenue to the east, East 149th Street to the south, and Jerome Avenue and Harlem River to the west. The neighborhood is divided into three subsections: West Concourse, East Concourse, and Concourse Village with the Grand Concourse being its main thoroughfare.

References

↑ Frederick M. Binder, David M. Reimers (1996). All the Nations Under Heaven: An Ethnic and Racial History of New York City . Columbia University Press. pp. 153–154. ISBN 0-231-07879-X. concourse plaza hotel.
1 2 Anthony Connors (May 24, 1998). "Then & Now: The Bronx' Grand Hotel". New York Daily News. Retrieved May 26, 2009.^{[ permanent dead link ]}
↑ "Frank Gifford: The game that changed football". Today.com. November 10, 2008. Retrieved May 26, 2009.
1 2 Jill Jonnes (2002). South Bronx Rising: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of an American City. Fordham University Press. pp. 130, 281. ISBN 0-8232-2199-7.
↑ Ray Carney. "Chapter on The Making of Gloria (1979-1980)". Ray Carney’s Cassavetes on Cassavetes Book. Retrieved May 26, 2009.

External links

161st Street/River Avenue Rezoning Overview, NYC Department of City Planning (the Concourse Plaza Hotel today)

40°49′38″N73°55′19″W / 40.827185°N 73.921896°W / 40.827185; -73.921896

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[1] Frederick M. Binder, David M. Reimers (1996). All the Nations Under Heaven: An Ethnic and Racial History of New York City . Columbia University Press. pp. 153–154. ISBN 0-231-07879-X. concourse plaza hotel.

[NYDN-2] 1 2 Anthony Connors (May 24, 1998). "Then & Now: The Bronx' Grand Hotel". New York Daily News. Retrieved May 26, 2009.^{[ permanent dead link ]}

[3] "Frank Gifford: The game that changed football". Today.com. November 10, 2008. Retrieved May 26, 2009.

[SBR-4] 1 2 Jill Jonnes (2002). South Bronx Rising: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of an American City. Fordham University Press. pp. 130, 281. ISBN 0-8232-2199-7.

[5] Ray Carney. "Chapter on The Making of Gloria (1979-1980)". Ray Carney’s Cassavetes on Cassavetes Book. Retrieved May 26, 2009.

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