Hotel Pennsylvania

Hotel Pennsylvania

The Hotel Pennsylvania is a hotel located at 401 7th Avenue in Manhattan, across the street from Pennsylvania Station and Madison Square Garden in New York City.
The Hotel Pennsylvania was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad and operated by Ellsworth Statler. It opened on January 25, 1919and was designed by the firm of McKim, Mead & White, which also designed the original columned version of Pennsylvania Station located across the street. (The old Pennsylvania Station was razed in 1963 to make room for Madison Square Garden and the redeveloped below-ground station in use today.)
The hotel was acquired by the Hotels Statler Company in 1948 and renamed the Hotel Statler. Following the sale of all 17 Statler hotels to Conrad Hilton in 1954, the hotel became The Statler Hilton. It operated under this name until the early 1980s, when Hilton sold the hotel. It was renamed The New York Statler for a brief period, and was operated by Dunfey hotels, a division of Aer Lingus. It was then purchased in 1984 by the Penta Hotels chain, a joint-venture of British Airways, Lufthansa and Swissair, becoming The New York Penta. In 1992 Penta went out of business and the hotel returned to its original name, Hotel Pennsylvania.