Are you part of the Hotel Albert’s history, big or small? Did you stay, live, dine, visit or even work here? Tell us your story. Perhaps you have some tangible memento of that time, too. Share your memories, photographs and memorabilia with us. We will post the best of them on the site.
Email remembrances and reminiscences to YourStory@TheHotelAlbert.com
Or write and send memorabilia to:
The Albert
Re: The Hotel Albert
23 East 10th Street
New York, NY 10003
To contact us on all other matters, email Info@TheHotelAlbert.com or call (347) 709-3037
Stories
From: Nina Rhea
Submitted 3/31/12
"If this is the hotel I remember from my childhood I could send you a memory. It's very vivid because there was a fire that started in the lobby cigar shop. I could walk to elementary school in the Village. The year was 1957-58."
Attachments:
Albert Hotel Fire Article, The Hotel Albert: A Childhood Memory
From: Carola Von H.
Previous Hotel Albert resident. Submitted 2/18/12
"I lived in the Albert in the summer of 1967. My first residence in NYC. The Albert was definitely dumpy but fun. Lots of rock musicians in the halls and elevators. The roaches in the bathroom were huge. The French restaurant on the ground floor was still operating. Their food was pretty good. Hopefully the roaches stayed on the upper floors..."
From: Lauren Asher
Previous Albert Apartment resident. Submitted 1/22/12
"I just found this website – and I’m so glad! I owned an apt. in the building from 2000-2007. While I lived there one of the staff told me that Charlie Chaplin lived there for a while and that sometimes you could see his ghost in the back stairway. Thought this might be an interesting tidbit."
From: Rich Vendig
Previous Hotel Albert resident. Submitted 10/31/11
"I lived at the Hotel Albert in 1968 after finishing college in Chicago. I worked as a bartender at the Red Witch on 4th street and 6th Avenue, near the Waverly Theatre...My room was very small. It was kind of seedy. I met a girl and she got me high on pot for my first time ever...I remember her name and face to this day Sitting here now, 43 years later, I wish I could return, be young and adventursome, have so much time yet to live...."
From: Malcolm Schoen, M.D.
Son-in-law of Joseph Brody. Submitted 9/18/11
"I just read the pieces on your website regarding the Albert French Restaurant and Joseph Brody. I was particularly interested because Joseph Brody was my father-in-law. I also own the Salvidor Dali painting (the basis for the "loconick" bus/train) pictured on the cover of The Villager in your article.
Though I only knew Mr. Brody beginning in 1965, I knew him until his death in the early 1970's."
From: John Sebastian
Lovin Spoonful band member. Submitted 4/27/11
"Well, the rumors are true; The Spoonful were frequent guests during the middle 60's.And,yes,I did write, "Do You Believe in Magic" in the basement, where the Spoonful pioneered using the basement as a place a band could play loud. Denny Doherty had a crush(maybe shared)by the manager during that era. Cass Elliot was also frequently there during the same period. All Hail the Albert!"
From: Carmi Bee
Architect for the 1975 building conversion. Submitted 4/26/11
"Reading the article on the Albert Hotel brought back many memories of when RKT&B (then Bernard Rothzeid Partners) worked on the conversion of the hotel and three adjacent buildings combining them into one large residence.
When we designed it in 1975, it was the largest adaptive reuse project in the city and the largest to have been done by the Rockrose Development Corp to that time. I vividly remember touring the buildings for the first time and looking into the courtyard which looked like a pin cushion.
We still have photographs of the original building and assorted documents and memories which I’d be pleased to share with Arlene Goldman. You can either give me her contact information or have her get in touch with me if she’s interested.
Best Regards,
Carmi"
From: Michelle Phillips (via phone)
Mama's & The Papa's band member. Submitted 4/21/11
"Couldn't have been nicer and said she was sorry she hadn't gotten in touch sooner but she was out of town.
She confirmed California Dreamin' being written in the Albert. She said it was while John was in the band Journeymen. Other tidbits that she added were that she cooked her first meal for John Phillips in the Albert. She said the place was a dump and the kitchen was like a closet. It's the place that they always stayed when they came to NY."
From: George Rosenfeld
Albert Rosenbaum's great grandson. Submitted 4/19/11
"Albert Rosenbaum was my great grandfather, He died long before my birth. His daughter, Julia, married William I. Rosenfeld, my grandfather, I think in 1894. She died in 1947. He died in 1957. The heirs became owners of the Albert. By the 1950s it had become a blight on the family escutcheon. I remember as a youngster being dragged to visit what, by then, had become a mélange of SROs. The tenants were older people, mostly down on their luck. The hallways were dark and smelled of disinfectant. There was a restaurant on the southeast corner of University Place and 11th St called The Albert. It had a neon copy of the Eiffel Tower in front. It featured “all you can eat” for something like $6.75.
Sometime in the late 1950s the collection of buildings was sold for very little. As I remember it was purchased by real estate tycoon William Zeckindorf who promptly resold it for a tidy profit.
Yours truly,
George Rosenfeld"
From: Jim Chu
Son of Kwei Chu proprietor of the Albert French Restaurant. Submitted 4/18/11
My father is a Chinese dishwasher who bought the Albert French from Joe Brody in the last days.
I have numerous artifacts from the restaurant - some of the old illustrations are at my restaurant, jo's. WWW.josnyc.com
From: Denis Sivack
Robert Downey & Donald Lev. Submitted 4/18/11
Filmmaker Robert Downey and poet Donald Lev lived in the Albert at the same time. Downey has Lev as a street poet reciting his poem "Hyn" in the movie Putney Swope.
Submitted by Denis Sivack
From: Naomi Rosenblum
Photo League history. Submitted 4/17/11
I read the interesting story in the NYT about the Hotel Albert and wish to add the fact that an important photographic organization was housed on its premises.
In c. 1948, the Photo League, which comprised street and documentary photographers, moved into the basement of the Hotel Albert. From the views reproduced in the NYT, the building that housed the League seems to be the New Hotel Albert.
Members included Paul Strand, Dan Weiner, Sid Grossman, Walter Rosenblum, Arthur Leipzig, the Newhalls, Barbara Morgan, Berenice Abbott (to name only a few). Members reconstructed and painted the basement premises to accommodate darkrooms, meeting room and exhibition gallery.
Unfortunately, the League, which had been formed in 1936 to provide a place for photographers interested in documenting aspects of New York life, lasted only a few more years following the move. After having been listed without evidence as a "subversive organization" by the attorney general of the U.S., it had trouble holding on to its membership and eventually ended its existence.
Naomi Rosenblum
From: David Weissman
The Cockettes. Submitted 4/15/11
The San Francisco drag hippie theater troupe The Cockettes stayed at the Albert in October/ November 1971, for their ill-fated New York debut. There is documentation in my film THE COCKETTES - still and moving images, and stories. Apparently there was an old bag lady living there who was a Hershey heiress - she befriended Cockette Goldie Glitters and Goldie was quite convinced he was going to have some cash bestowed upon him...