Weekend, March 29-30, 2025 – LIFE WAS VERY RESTICTED WHEN A YOUNG LADY CAME TO THE BIG CITY

By admin

On her own:

The legacy of women’s hotels in

New York City

Michelle Cohen

Weekend, March29-30, 2025

6SQFT

 ISSUE #1413

OOPS!
Yesterday I wrote that I had my knee replaced. Wrong!!! I had my left hip replaced!!  Those opiods really goof with your brain!!!

Women in the dining room of the Clara de Hirsch Home for Working Girls, undated. Photo courtesy of 92NY Archives

The tale of a woman on her own, arriving in New York City to find her fortune, began long before Mary Tyler Moore exuberantly tossed her hat into the air. The city’s history is inseparable from international women’s history, and a handful of residences that offered refuge for young ladies arriving solo is undoubtedly part of this story. With good moral intentions–and rules and regulations–they were gracious in the amenities and camaraderie offered. Introduced here are some of the historic hotels that helped generations of women gain a foothold in the big city–as well as one set to reopen this year as a modern women-only residence.

The Barbizon Hotel for Women

The most famous women-only hotel, the Barbizon Hotel for Women, would still be known as a chic networking hub for women well into the 1970s, but its early days were no less interesting. Far from utilitarian or charity-oriented, the hotel grew into a legendary establishment that attracted a generation of creative and interesting women.

Opening its doors in 1927, the Barbizon Hotel offered a safe–yet sophisticated–space for ambitious young women pursuing careers before marriage. Designed in a distinctive Late Gothic Revival style with pink-toned brick, the 23-story building housed 700 tiny dormitory-style rooms and elite amenities, including a library, solarium, swimming pool, and Turkish bath.

Nicknamed “The Dollhouse,” the Barbizon attracted a mix of creatives, models, and aspiring professionals, counting among its residents literary icons Sylvia Plath and Joan Didion, Hollywood legends Grace Kelly and Liza Minnelli–and a young Nancy Reagan. The hotel was also home to students from the Katharine Gibbs Secretarial School and models from the Powers Agency, earning it a reputation as a launch pad of sorts for ambitious women. Admission was strict: Women were categorized by age and appearance, and diversity was nonexistent until 1956.

For decades, men were barred from the upper floors, though any given evening would find several loitering longingly in the lobby. As social mores loosened by the decade, the Barbizon struggled to maintain its allure, and by the 1970s, the rise of women’s independence made its rules seem outdated. In 1981, the hotel finally opened to male guests, leading to its eventual transformation into luxury condominiums.

Introduced in Paulina Bren’s social history, “The Barbizon: The Hotel That Set Women Free,” the Barbizon’s legacy endures in the remarkable form of a handful of original residents. Known as “The Women,” a few residents fought for the right to remain in their rooms, protected by rent control. According to Untapped, as of 2021, five of these women were residing in the building, paying rents that are a fraction of today’s multimillion-dollar condo prices. Their presence is a living testament to an era when the Barbizon symbolized female ambition, worldliness, independence, and change in 20th-century America

The Stewart Hotel

Among the earliest women’s hotels vying for “first” status, the Stewart Hotel was founded by Alexander Turney Stewart, a wealthy Irish merchant who immigrated to New York City in 1823. Intended as a “working women’s hotel” that would provide a respectable, affordable, and safe refuge for the recent wave of Revolutionary War widows who were flocking to the city in search of a living wage. With profit rather than charity as a motivating factor, Stewart saw vast opportunity in this unusual-for-the-time enterprise.

Stewart commissioned an architect to design a hotel that would occupy an entire block from 32nd Street to 33rd Street along Fourth Avenue, with room for 1,500 women, with common areas for dining and gathering. As Daytonian tells it, when the hotel finally opened its doors in 1877, the New York Times called it “the best constructed, the most elaborately furnished, the best appointed, and with the most perfect culinary department of any hotel in the world. Besides all this the Women’s Hotel is, by almost 200 rooms the largest in the Metropolis, and it is intended to furnish women who earn their livelihood the best possible living for the least possible money.”

For $6 a week, guests got a shared room (a private room could be had for an additional dollar). No food was allowed in the rooms; visitors were not allowed anywhere but the hotel’s reception room; pets were not allowed at all; closing time was 11:30 P.M. sharp; and applicants to the hotel were required to supply written proof that they were employed and over 12 years of age.

Despite these efforts, the hotel’s doors closed fifty-four days after its launch, citing an inability to cover operating costs. The regular Park Avenue Hotel opened subsequently at the same address. In 1925, the building was leveled to build a 35-story office tower

The Martha Washington

By the 1890s, the city was becoming a magnet for women in search of a veritable bonanza of new jobs, seeking careers as stenographers, clerks, secretaries, and teachers. The rather anonymously titled Women’s Hotel opened in 1903 at 30 East 30th Street, according to Untapped, to provide housing, both temporary and permanent, for professional women in its 416 rooms; male guests were not allowed above the ground floor, and almost all staff were female.

Unlike the Stewart, the hotel was a success from the start, with a long waiting list; subsequently renamed the Martha Washington Hotel, it offered rooms starting at $3 a week. The hotel offered a pharmacy, tailor services, and a manicurist and welcomed a new wave of college-educated women headed for professional careers. It was also the headquarters of a feminist organization called the Interurban Women Suffrage Council.

Suffragists from Oregon visiting New York City before meeting in Washington, D.C. with President Wilson. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress

The Martha Washington Hotel was a novelty–a tourist attraction, even–in that it offered women a level of freedom that was missing from previous women-only establishments, making even more waves when it applied for a liquor license in 1933. Famous guests included poet Sara Teasdale and actresses Louise Brooks and Veronica Lake.

The hotel lasted well past the turn of the 21st century. Its last incarnation was as the women-run Redbury Hotel, which closed in 2023 to become a migrant shelter.

The Margaret Louisa Home

At the end of the century, Margaret Louisa Vanderbilt Shepard (daughter of William Vanderbilt), a major supporter of the YWCA, funded a new building that was to be known as the Margaret Louisa Home for Protestant Women. The six-story building boasted 78 bedrooms, a restaurant, and common areas for socializing and relaxing. As Daytonian tells us, at its opening in June of 1891, the New York Times called it “an inspiring evidence of woman’s interest in women.”

Rooms would be 60 cents; an extra 85 cents covered three meals. Boarders would be limited to a four-week stay. Like the Martha Washington, the new residence was a hit from the moment it opened its doors, welcoming thousands of women in its first year. Their ranks included (daytonian; In 1898 the Times gave a breakdown) teachers, milliners, dressmakers, housekeepers, stenographers, physicians, librarians, lecturers, missionaries, actresses, nurses, photographers, umbrella makers, confectioners, hair curlers, florists, merchants, and “travelers.”
At the close of World War I, the Margaret Louisa Home was still charging only 60 cents per night; it remained open through the first half of the 20th century.

The Parkside Evangeline

The Parkside Evangeline Hotel at 18 Gramercy Park–now a luxury condominium–began as a hotel for women in 1927. It continued as a women’s temporary residence owned by the Salvation Army from 1963 to 2008.

An illustration in “The Girl Who Earns Her Own Living” (1909) Caption: “Dining-room in Trowmart Inn, New York City, Said to Be the Best Managed Hotel for Self-supporting Women in America.” Via Wikimedia

Trowmart Inn

Trowmart Inn for Working Girls at 607 Hudson Street was opened in 1906, mainly to provide a home for nurses during World War I. The building was purchased by the YWCA, and a substantial donation to the YWCA from John D. Rockefeller Jr. helped establish a subsequent women’s residence called Laura Spelman Hall; the building later became a nursing home, which was replaced by, of course, condos.

According to The New York Historical, the Trowmart offered “shop, millinery, and factory girls” minimal rooms, plus breakfast and dinner starting at $4.50 a week. Amenities included a dining room and a cafeteria, “beau parlors” for entertaining gentlemen friends, a music parlor, a library, an on-site doctor’s office, a sewing room, and laundry facilities.

The Jeanne D’Arc Home

Founded in 1896, the Jeanne D’Arc Home on West 26th Street began as a refuge for “friendless French girls” separated from their families, according to Ephemeral New York; it remains a safe haven for women, run by the Congregation of Divine Providence, open to women of all faiths and cultures, with a focus on international visitors who have come for study or work.

The Clara de Hirsch Home

The Clara de Hirsch Home for Working Girls was a non-sectarian teenage girls’ home located at 225 East 63rd Street. Founded in 1897, it was supported by an endowment by Belgian businesswoman and philanthropist Clara de Hirsch. In 1960, the building was sold, and the organization that maintained it merged with the 92nd Street Young Men’s Hebrew Association (YMHA).

The Webster Apartments

One (and perhaps the only of its kind) residence offering women-only living is poised to make a 21st-century comeback. The Webster Apartments will be officially opening in May of 2025 at 229 Duffield Street in a rapidly developing section of Downtown Brooklyn. Operating as a nonprofit organization, the residence will provide “women who are working, studying, and interning, with a safe and healthy environment to live, connect, and network with like-minded individuals.”

Residents won’t find 1923 prices, of course–and applicants must meet income criteria. There will be a minimum stay of 31 days. Amenities will include a fitness center, a community room, a rooftop lounge, and free laundry.

According to The Paris Review, the original Webster Apartments were established in 1923 by brothers Charles and Josiah Webster, senior partners at a nearby Macy’s store, to provide a safe residence for unmarried shopgirls, many of whom were recently arrived from small towns across America.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

HAPPINESS IS SEEING THE GRASS TURN
GREEN IN QUEENSBRIDGE PARK

I ventured out today to experience walking on the island Z-brick pavers with a walker.  What a grinding experience!!! Not pleasant.

Judy Berdy

CREDITS

6SQFT

MICHELLE COHEN

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.

Copyright © 2024 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com