Carter's Review

This large pre-war building at 150 West 51^st Street, which occupies the entire east blockfront on Seventh Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets that was formerly the Taft Hotel, was divided into two sections with their own adjacent street entrances. 

The 22-story complex was erected in 1926. 

It was converted in 1986 into 448 condominium residences, 270 hotel rooms and about 35,000 square feet of retail space and 20,000 square feet of office space by Taft Partnners Development Group, a venture of Steven Goodstein of the Goodstein Construction company, Hank Sopher of J. I. Sopher & Company and Arthur Cohen, chairman of Arlem Realty and Development Corporation. 

Wechsler-Grasso-Menziuso was the architect for the conversions. 

Executive Plaza is the residential condominium and occupies the mid-block section of the develpoment. It contains 443 apartments. The Michelangelo Hotel, which occupies the second through the sixth floors, is along the avenue and is the other section. 

The property had gone through several ownership changes prior to the renaissance of Times Square in the mid-1990's and even the construction of the huge and very impressive Equitable Center, known for a while as the Axa Center and now as 787 Seventh Avenue, directly across 51st Street did little to improve the property's economics. 

The revival of the Times Square area, helped in no small part at the northern end by the commitment of the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States to erect a major new headquarters on Seventh Avenue with a significant amount of public art, however, changed this property's fortunes. Equitable subsequently moved out of the building to a nearby location in an existing tower on the Avenue of the Americas and changed its name to AXA. 

A new gray polished granite three-story base was part of the rehabilitation and the Michelangelo Hotel, which has a very impressive and large lobby at 152 West 51st Street, closer to the Seventh Avenue corner than the canopied entrance to Executive Plaza, opened in a very heated hotel market when occupancy rates where at record high levels. 

The lobby of the Executive Plaza is not as large and lavish as the hotel, but it is closer to Le Bernardin, the famous fish restaurant across the street, and the Ruth's Chris Steak House, which occupied the building's eastern sidestreet retail frontage. 

The building is one of the city's last remaining, large, pre-war hotel structures with deep light wells above a two- or three-story base. 

The building type was popular at the turn of the century and several were in the Grand Central area such as the famed Biltmore, which was converted to an office building and reclad with a flush, polished red granite façade, the Commodore, which was converted to the Hyatt Regency Hotel and reclad with a reflective-glass flush façade, and the Roosevelt Hotel on Madison Avenue at 45th Street, the last remaining one in that area. 

Those hotels were a bit more luxurious than the Taft was because Seventh Avenue was never considered an elegant location. 

Bottom Line

With its three large lightwells, this property has long been a popular tourist hotel just a couple of blocks north of Times Square.

Description

The beige-brick building has a three-story, polished granite base with high arched windows along the avenue.

Amenities

The building has a concierge, a doorman, a fitness center, a roof deck, a live-in superintendent, valet service and a laundry room. 

It does not permit pets.

Apartments

Apartments have 9- to 10-foot-high ceilings and dishwashers and all units are non-smoking. 

Apartment 27 on the 15^th and 16^th floors has a 19-foot-ooot-long living room with an open kitchen, a 12-foot-long study and a 14-foot-long bedroom. 

Apartment 7 on floors 8 through 20 is a two-bedroom unit with a 20-foot-long living room with an open kitchen with an island. 

Apartment 1927 has a 21-foot-long gallery foyer that leads to a 14-foot-long living /dining room with an open kitchen, a 10-foot-long bedroom, a 7-foot-long home office and a 10-foot-long bathroom. 

Apartment 2107 is a studio unit with a 16-foot-long, sunken living room. 

Apartment 2117 is a duplex with a 17-foot-long living room and a 15-foot-long dining area wit an open kitchen and a very long terrace on the lower level and two bedrooms on the upper level.

History

When the Taft Hotel was erected, it was one of the top tourist hotels in the city. The Roxy Theater opened next door the following year. 

Seventh Avenue's reputation, however, is changing. The former Equitable Center connects internally to the former Paine Webber Building on the Avenue of the Americas at the northern end of the "Rockefeller Center West" complex. Directly south of Executive Plaza on Seventh Avenue was a large parking lot that was planned for major redevelopment by Rockefeller Center and it was designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox, one of the city's premier architectural firms, for Lehman Brothers, but eventually became 745 Seventh Avenue and the Barclays Bank building. 

The Michaelangelo Hotel and Executive Plaza are across 51^st Street from the Sheraton Hotel, one of the city’s major convention hotels. 

A December 26, 1963 article by John S. Wilson in The New York Times reported that Vincent Lopez and his orchestra will be in the Grill Room of the Taft Hotel ($14.50 a per son for a filet mignon supper).  

In 1958, the Zeckendorf Hotels Corporation announced its purchase of the 1,431-room Taft Hotel from a partnership headed by Lawrence A. Wien, and in 1961, the Zeckendorf Hotels Corporation sold a 97-year leasehold on the property to the Breitbart Corpration of which Sheldon Lewis Breitbart was the president.  Other hotels in the Zeckendorf group at the time were the Astor, the Chatham, the Commodore, the Drake and the Manhattan. 

In 1926, the hotel had opened as the Manger Hotel and when it was purchased in 1931 by Bing & Bing its name was changed to the Taft. 

In May, 2012, Oakwood Worldwide announced it had acquired the ExecuStay corporate housing brand from Marriott International Inc. and that it would manage some of the rooms at the hotel.