The Hotel Colborne was constructed on Washington Place in Greenwich Village in 1915. By 1960 the name had changed to the Village Plaza Hotel, and around that time this sign was painted on the side of the building, with the note in the blue stripe that it was air conditioned. By this time, it had devolved from a luxurious tourist hotel to a single-room-occupancy welfare hotel. In 1967, one of the residents and her hippie boyfriend were killed in what were known as the "Groovy Murders". The comments section for the post on this hotel on the Ephemeral New York blog are a fascinating discussion on the people involved in that incident from those who were actually living in the Village as runaway teens at that time. In recent years, the building has become co-op apartments, but the old Village Plaza sign remains.
just goes to show there
ReplyDelete"ain't no easy street"
Clicking on that link sent me down the rabbit hole. Very interesting, but I had to stop scrolling otherwise I'd be reading those comments until I fell asleep.
ReplyDelete