On a visit to see the remodeled Penn Station LIRR corridor in February 2023, I was meandering around the area when this tall brick building on West 34th just off 9th Avenue intrigued me, not least because of the plaque in the front whose lettering, honoring William Sloane, has largely worn off and is mostly illegible, unless you want to stand there scrutinizing it for a half hour.
It turns out this ie one of the many repurposed buildings once belonging to the Young Men’s Christian association (YMCA). As the website New York Heritage explains,
Founded in 1930 to provide cheap housing for members of the Armed Forces, the William Sloane House was named after William Sloane (1873-1922), chair of the Army and Navy International Committee through World War I and of the National War Work Council of the YMCA. This building on West 34th Street was the largest YMCA residential program in the city of New York. Designed by New York architects Cross and Cross, the William Sloane house opened with 1,595 rooms, but remodeling and changes in programs eventually reduced the rooms to 1,400. By the 1940s, changing demographics forced the William Sloane to refocus. As the number of servicemen needing housing dwindled, women and girls could stay in the building, and the William Sloane began providing long-term accommodations to college students and welfare recipients. After a fire in 1974 that killed four people and several attempts at fundraising in the 1980s, the William Sloane closed in 1993. The building was eventually purchased for five million dollars and remodeled, becoming the 360 West 34th Street, a building of affordable rental apartments for young professionals new to New York. |
This wasn’t the only building on 34th Street with residences for one sex only. The Webster Apartments, about a block west, admitted and continues to admit just women.
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11/22/23