The Former Grand Hotel – Viewed from Broadway and 32nd Street, New York, New York

The Grand Hotel at 1232-1238 Broadway at the corner of West 31st Street in the NoMad neighborhood of Manhattan, once one of New York City’s grandest accommodations. Designed by Henry Engelbert in the Second Empire style, it was built in 1868. Englebert designed the hotel for Elias S. Higgins, a prosperous carpet manufacturer and merchant.

At the time the Grand Hotel was built, the area of Broadway between Madison Square and Herald Square was the premier entertainment district in the city, teaming with theatres, restaurants and hotels. The sleezier establishments on the side streets soon gave the district a new name, the "Tenderloin". When the theater district moved uptown again, the area became part of the Garment District, and the Grand Hotel became a cut-rate residential hotel. It is now home to wholesale joints like Design Time Watch Inc. Note the mansard roof, a French affectation that allowed Parisians, whose buildings were limited by storeys, to pretend that their top floor was an attic.

The building was designated a New York City Landmark in 1979, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. A thoughtless owner painted over the marble facade, in violation of the landmark law.