The hotel in 2008 with the neon "M" on top, since removed
Row NYC Hotel is a hotel at 700
Eighth Avenue, between 44th and 45th Streets, in the
Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The hotel is 27 stories tall with 1,331 rooms. Designed by
Schwartz & Gross, with
Herbert J. Krapp as consulting architect, it was developed by brothers Henry and
Irwin Chanin and opened on February 1, 1928, as the
Hotel Lincoln. The hotel largely retains its original brick-and-terracotta facade. The interior spaces, which originally included a lobby and various restaurants on the first three stories, have been redesigned substantially over the years.
The Chanin brothers had acquired the site in May 1925 and developed it along with the neighboring
John Golden,
Bernard B. Jacobs, and
Majestic theaters. The Chanins resold the hotel in 1927 to Irving I. Lewine and the United Cigar Stores Company, but the brothers continued to lease the hotel until 1931, when United Cigars acquired their lease. Maria Kramer bought the hotel in 1938 before reselling it in 1956 to
Webb and Knapp, operated by real estate developer
William Zeckendorf, which extensively renovated the hotel and renamed it the
Hotel Manhattan. British firm Grand Metropolitan Inc. bought the hotel in 1969, and it operated as the
Royal Manhattan until it was closed in 1974. The Milstein family purchased the hotel in 1978, and it reopened in 1980 as the
Milford Plaza Hotel.
Rockpoint Group and hotel operator Highgate Holdings bought the hotel in 2011 and renamed it the
Row NYC in 2014. Following an influx of asylum seekers to New York City, the hotel began housing
asylum seekers in 2023. (
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