2. Commodore Hotel

Photo via Library of Congress by Irving Underhill

The Commodore Hotel opened on January 28, 1919 and it was named after the eponymous  Commodore, Cornelius Vanderbilt. The hotel had 2,000 rooms when it was built, and boasted that it was not only the world’s largest but also possessed the world’s most spacious lobby as well. A never realized expansion would have enshrined the hotel’s claims by doubling its size to 4,000 rooms.

The Grand Hyatt New York Hotel at Grand Central in Manhattan.

Through the 1960s, the hotel was very successful. Unfortunately, the 1970s brought bankruptcy to the railroad company and the hotel was sold off. Donald Trump purchased the hotel but its terminal city history proved no match for Trump. In 1980, Gruzen & Partners and DerScutt and were brought in to redesign the building. The Commodore was gutted, reclad in glass, and re-inaugurated as the Grand Hyatt New York. The hotel’s original masonry smokestack is still visible in its new state.