Way back in 2008 I was meandering west on 35th Street between 7th and 9th, the south end of the Garment District, when I spotted a building entrance that must have been nearly unchanged from when it was built. I later learned that the Rose Building, 345-351 West 35th, was built between 1925-1926 and mostly housed clothes manufacturing and wholesaling offices…
photo: 30beats
…which it did until its latest incarnation. Here is the old lobby bulletin board notating the tenants.
Another entrance featured an old fashioned stencil lettering sign, but in a modern font, so it couldn’t have been that old. Someone had come along and scribbled the name of Anne Frank, the teenage diarist who was temporarily hidden by a Dutch family from Nazi occupiers.
Between 2010 and 2013, the Rose Building was transformed into the TRYP Wyndham Times Square South, a midprice hotel operated by a Barcelona, Spain -based firm that has dozens of locations worldwide. Its website, in charming broken English, describes the amenities. The New York Times and Overnight New York rate it middling at best.
New York is an ever-changing beast, molting some fur and feathers and growing different-colored ones seemingly from year to year. That’s why I always carry a camera.
Elsewhere on West 35th…
Near 7th Avenue, another Wyndham, the Wingate Hotel, was plopped in front of an ancient wall mural calling out building management.
254 West 35th features an original doorway, with a 1950s Fallout Shelter sign, and what looks like a 1965-1975 makeover.
370 West 35th near 9th Avenue is covered top to bottom in terra cotta, including a pair of peacocks above the entrance.
7/2/13
3 comments
HA! Check out the directory. Mellon Corp. Mellon was Rodney Dangerfield’s character in “Back to School” and in the film he was a successful clothes purveyor for Big and Tall men.
I use to work in the building 351 west 35th street back in the early 80’s for 3 years. I worked for the Sharkey family and I believe they owned both buildings. We worked in the store front where all the compainies listed (Chemicraft, Perforated Specialties etc…) They were a jewish family and the father who started the company, Alexander Sharkey lived until he was 96. His sons and inlaws and grandchildren also joined the company. I left in 1985 and passed by about 2007 and saw that the company went out of business or was sold. The building was empty. I recently stayed at The New Yorker Hotel which is across the street from the buildings and I had a window overlooking the new TRYP hotel and it made me feel so nostalgic.
I just found some papers from the Perforated Pattern Co., Inc. -351 W 35th St. -a price list of their products and marker cloths. I bought my perforating machines and stamping powders and waxes from them i the 1970’s, 80’s, for beading and embroidery work. Also bought black lights from them for working on white fabrics. I am guessing the price lists date from 1979-1980. Sad how the garment center is so diminished now, and how it was so thriving through the 1980’s, ev en well into the ’90’s.