The first time I ever went to New York was in the summer of 1959. My mother took me on a trip to that city and then on to Hartford and then Boston. In New York, we stayed at a hotel on Seventh Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets. It was then called either the Taft Hotel or the Hotel Taft depending on where you looked. At the age of nine, I found that very confusing. These days, it's called The Michelangelo.
The second time I went to New York was the summer of 1970. My then-partner Steve Sherman and I flew back there on Sunday, June 28 and we stayed at the Statler-Hilton, which was located at 401 Seventh Avenue across from Pennsylvania Station and Madison Square Garden. It opened in 1919 as the Hotel Pennsylvania and changed names several times but it was back to being the Hotel Pennsylvania when it closed for good on April Fool's Day of 2020.
There was much talk of preservation and refurbishing and renovation both before and after the closure but as The New York Times explains…
Bit by bit, floor by floor, the building that once rose 22 stories over Penn Station is shrinking before the city's very eyes. The black netting draped over its ever-diminishing brick is like a magician's handkerchief; once removed, it will reveal — nothing.
Behold: The Great Disappearing Act of the Hotel Pennsylvania.
Steve and I picked the Statler-Hilton because our first comic book convention — The 1970 Comic Art Convention — was being held in its penthouse meeting rooms on July 3, 4 and 5. At the time, Steve and I were assisting Jack Kirby with his then-forthcoming new creations for DC Comics. We were also working with a crooked (as we later found out) operation called Marvelmania International that was selling Marvel-based merchandise…or as we now call it, "merch."
So we spent the days before the con visiting the offices of DC Comics, Marvel Comics, MAD magazine, Steve Ditko and a few other businesses or people. Beginning on or around July 1, we had another roommate with the arrival of our friend, comic book artist Mike Royer.
Mike flew to Manhattan and bunked with us at the Statler-Hilton while he tried to secure work from a couple of New York publishers. Kirby was hoping that some or all of this work for DC would be inked by Mike but the folks at the company said no. In fact, they said "no" pretty firmly. That was never ever going to happen…
…until it did about a year later. One thing I learned early about creative fields is that "Absolutely not" usually means "Absolutely not at this moment" and "never in a million years" could expire as quickly as in a week or two. I was once told by a senior executive at Hanna-Barbera that I would never work for the studio again and that I was banned forever from the building. This ban was firm, absolute and in full force for about fourteen minutes.
In later years, I was a guest a couple of times at comic conventions at what was by then, back to being the Hotel Pennsylvania. When I was such a guest, I stayed there for the duration of the con and any days before or after I wished to spend in Manhattan. When I went to New York and was not attending a con at the Hotel Pennsylvania, I usually stayed in or around Times Square. That was a lot closer to places I was going on those trips — places like publishers' offices or Broadway theaters.
Still, my last few trips east, I thought about staying at the Hotel Pennsylvania…and not just because it was cheaper. Despite its age and all the wear and tear, it was a fascinating place to stay. So much history. So many interesting stores and ballrooms and tourists. The wi-fi seemed to be powered by a hamster on a treadmill and the rooms didn't seem to have been cleaned since my 1970 stay but I didn't care. Of all the hotels I've stayed at in New York, the Hotel Pennsylvania felt the most like staying in New York.
And now, it's vanishing floor by floor. Every floor on which I ever stayed may be gone by now.
I am not one of those people who believes that every place about which any person ever had a fond memory must be preserved forever. Old buildings are often torn down to make way for much better buildings…and it's possible that what will eventually be at that address will be much, much better.
I just remember that the first few times I took my dear friend Carolyn to New York — a city in which she'd lived for a couple decades — we stayed in fancy places in or around Times Square. And then one year, we stayed at the Hotel Pennsylvania because of a convention there and she was so much happier. It wasn't that she hadn't liked the more modern ones but our first night at the Penn, she turned to me and said what I just said above about how it really felt, for all the right reasons, like being in New York.
That's not a reason to preserve an ancient hotel that might eventually have fallen down out of sheer old age. It's just a reason to remember it fondly…because I remember Carolyn fondly.