The Abandoned Keller Hotel on the West Side Highway

“I remember as a teenager dancing at Keller’s on hot summer nights in the mid 1970s,” says Frank H. Jump of FadingAd blog. Like many other places along the industrial waterfront, Keller’s was a hotel for sailors and was located directly across from the Hoboken ferry. Today, you’ll recognize it for the great retro HOTEL sign still attached to the building and its sad state of vacancy. In the 1980s it became an SRO (Single Room Occupancy) hotel and the Landmarks Preservation Commission noted in 2007, when the building was landmarked, that it was being converted into residential apartments. Doesn’t seem like it today though. Untapped photographer Chuck Lau captured these shots during his shoot of the little abandoned Kullman diner on West Street.

According to Sheryl Woodruff GVSHP,  “The Landmarks Preservation Commission recognized the building as one of the last surviving examples by architect Julius Munckwitz (who designed the landmarked Central Park Boathouse) and one of the last ‘surviving turn-of-the-century Hudson River waterfront hotels.'” It continues to be abandoned, even though the owner William Gottlieb has already passed away. The building is now under the ownership of his estate, which also has a number of other properties in the West Village. As Woodruff writes, “Mr. Gottlieb was known before his death for not selling, or investing money, in his properties. The Estate seems to be continuing this trend.”