This NY Hotel Closed in 1968 and Became part of Schenectady County Community College

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The Hotel Van Curler is an early twentieth-century Georgian Revival-style hotel. Constructed in 1925 as part of a civic pride movement that developed at the height of Schenectady's most prosperous and optimistic period, the hotel was the first of five major Neoclassical public buildings erected in the city between 1925-1933.

Its construction was financed by two of the city's major employers (the American Locomotive Company and the General Electric Company), the Chamber of Commerce, and over 1,000 citizens. The building's design was the work of H.L. Stevens and Company, an architectural firm that specialized in designing small hotels. Like many of the firm's hotels, the Hotel Van Curler is a typical example of early twentieth-century Neoclassical style architecture featuring restrained Georgian & Federal motifs, an idiom extremely popular for public buildings during that period. Small hotels designed by the Stevens firm were often noted for their convenient and accessible plans and their "homey atmosphere" qualities attributed to the Van Curler in a contemporary review (Architectural Forum, February 1927). During its heyday the hotel fulfilled its promise, serving as the location of many significant local events and hosting many national figures over the years. In its current use as a community college, the public rooms; the Lobby, the Reception Room (now Mohawk Room), and the Ballroom (now Van Curler Room), have been preserved for community use, and the building continues as a focus of civic pride in the city.

The Hotel Van Curler, now Elston Hall of Schenectady County Community College, opened in 1925 and was built at the apex of a thirty-five year period, 1890-1925, during which Schenectady was the fastest growing city in New York State. The city's population grew by five times, peaking at 96,000, and the wealth by ten times in that period. The American Locomotive Company had been located in Schenectady since 1850. The Edison Machine Works was founded in 1886 here and became the headquarters of the Edison General Electric Company when it was formed in 1889. The extraordinary growth of the city of Schenectady paralleled the growth of the Schenectady Works of General Electric and was expected to continue. However, the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the Great Depression, the spread of population to the suburbs, the proliferation of motels, and the decentralization of the General Electric Company after World War II all helped give the lie to optimism about the city's future. The Hotel Van Curler, described in 1925 as "a fitting monument to Arendt Van Curler and a tribute to the spirit which animates his descendants" remains in 1985 as the proud and handsome symbol of Schenectady's "Golden Years." This image is reinforced by the building's present use by Schenectady County Community College, which offers educational services and cultural events that are again bringing large numbers of individuals and organizations into the building.

The new hotel was a principal feature of the development of the lower portion of the city, following the construction of the New York State Barge Canal in the Mohawk River in the 1920s and the subsequent acquisition by the city of the abandoned Erie Canal bed. The filling in of the canal bed and the construction of Erie Boulevard, the building of a sea wall from the Locomotive Company to the Rotterdam line, and the widening of Washington Avenue combined with the extension of State Street leading onto the new Western Gateway Bridge were agreed upon and financed in preparation for the planned development, Benjamin Bonnar, secretary of the Schenectady Chamber of Commerce, said at the opening of the hotel, "The Hotel Van Curler is publicly owned, standing at the gateway entrance, a landmark to the city's progressiveness, the outstretched hand of hospitality. It exemplifies the city's ideals and ambitions … (and is) a new industry which will employ more than 100 people … It has the atmosphere of a resort hotel … an unobstructed view of the Mohawk Valley … five minutes walk from the depot and the heart of the city." Leslie Kincaid, president of the American Hotels Corporation said at the first opening event that "there seems, when you look at it, to be a handshake in every brick and a smile in every window. The very portals seem to say, ‘Come in, and sit down … make yourself to home.’"

The sources of customers for the hotel were expected to be commercial travelers, tourists, and the General Electric Company. Several small hotels, including the Gilmore House, were torn down in the development of the area, effectively eliminating any competition for hotel customers. The representative of the United Travelers Association said at the opening of the hotel that "traveling men will now stay overnight in Schenectady instead of having to take an hour's trolley ride to Albany" for decent accommodations.

The building of the Hotel Van Curler was viewed as a community expression of civic pride. The American Locomotive Company and the General Electric Company contributed $300,000 between them toward the $700,000 needed for construction. The building committee of the newly formed Schenectady Chamber of Commerce raised almost $84,000 from its own members. The remaining money was over-subscribed in four days with over 1000 citizens contributing. The building and furnishings cost $1,100,000. The hotel building was the first of four major buildings resulting from the "civic pride" campaign. The Memorial Chapel on the Union College campus was dedicated in 1925. The Y.M.C.A., diagonally across the intersection of Washington Avenue and State Street from the Van Curler, opened in 1926. The Y.W.C.A., across State Street in the next block on Washington Avenue was opened in 1931, and the McKim, Mead, and White designed City Hall was dedicated in 1933.

The hotel was designed by H.L. Stevens and Company of New York and Chicago. This company specialized in designing hotels of less than 500 rooms capacity. The Hotel Van Curler was built with 208 rooms. The nine-story Churchill Hotel in Chicago, designed by the Stevens firm, is described as a "milestone" in The Development of Chicago Building Construction, and its exterior and floor plan are pictured in Baird and Warner's Portfolio of Fine Apartment Homes, published in 1928. Stevens-designed hotels in 1925 included the Miami in Dayton, Ohio; the Savery, Brown, and Randolph in Des Moines, Iowa; the Ruskin in Pittsburgh; the Berkshire in Reading, Pennsylvania; and the Robert E. Lee and the Winston in Salem, N.C., and a number in western cities. Under construction in 1925 were hotels in Pittsfield, Gardner, and Northampton, Massachusetts; New Britain, Connecticut; and Staunton, Virginia.

Pictures and some information about seven hotels designed by H.L. Stevens and Company about the same time as the Hotel Van Curler have been obtained. All eight of the hotels are built of brick with limestone trim. The Hotel Burritt which opened in 1924 in New Britain, Connecticut, is described in the New Britain Herald as being built in the "Colonial Georgian style." It has a belt course of alternating brick and stone panels above the second floor, lunettes with keystone motif over some windows, a portico and central section under a decorated pediment supported by pilasters, and many other features almost identical to those of the Van Curler.

The Colonial Hotel in Gardner, Massachusetts was opened in 1924. It is very similar to the Van Curler, lacking only the projection of the wings and their Federal tops. The Stonewall Jackson Hotel in Staunton, Virginia opened in 1924 and has Palladian windows with keystone decoration at the top, alternating rectangular and elliptical windows above some of these windows, swag-decorated frieze panels, a semi-circular projecting section with long windows instead of the Van Curler's double doors, rusticated quoins, brick pilasters, and a belt course of stone and brick panels. The New Savery Hotel, which opened in 1919 in Des Moines, Iowa, is square, but it has many design features seen on the Van Curler facades, including keystone decoration above the windows, and a belt course of brick and stone above the second floor. Stone balustrade balconies decorate the second-floor windows, and alternating stone balustrade sections and brick decorate the roofline. The Miami in Dayton, Ohio, is rectangular and flat-roofed. It has, however, an alternating brick and stone paneled belt course, keystone-decorated windows, balconies on a few double windows, and bracketing along the roofline similar to that on the Van Curler.

The Miami has much more elaborately carved stone decoration than that on the Van Curler. The Ruskin Apartments in Pittsburgh, Pennslyvania, opened in 1923 and is built in an H-shape. Its roofline is flat, but Palladian windows, keystone-decorated window tops, etc., resemble the Van Curler. The Churchill Apartment Hotel in Chicago, Illinois opened in 1923. It is a rectangular building with keystone decoration above arched windows and some rectangular windows, a two-story white stone "basement," carved stone panels, and what appear to be iron balconies on the third and fourth floors, all similar to Van Curler. From the association of the American Hotels Association (management) and the H.L. Stevens and Co. (architects and builders), which is mentioned in the material available on these eight hotels (including the Van Curler), it would appear that H.L. Stevens and Co. designed hotels in two modes, rectangular and H-shaped. The H-shaped ones (the Van Curler, the Colonial, and the Burritt Hotel) are very much alike in many ways, but they are certainly distinguishable. The similarity to the others is, however, unmistakable. Interior photographs from the other hotels show similar ballrooms and similar lobby treatment.

The architect for the Van Curler was chosen with the approval of the American Hotels Corp., which had previously been selected to manage the hotel. Literature about other Stevens-designed hotels reveals that the American Hotels Corporation managed many of them. Neither the Stevens firm nor the American Hotels Corporation is in business today.

Other large buildings in the Neoclassical style, often with Georgian and Federal motifs, were built in Schenectady between 1924 and 1933. They include the Union College Memorial Chapel (1924), the Y.M.C.A, (1926), the Y.W.C.A. (1931), and the Schenectady City Hall (1933). In this context the Hotel Van Curler appears to be typical and characteristic, perhaps a bit more decorated than the others. This style had appeared in schools (e.g., the 1907 Franklin School) and private homes in Schenectady earlier in the century. These relatively few buildings, public and private, commercial and residential, constitute a glimpse into Schenectady's image of itself and/or its expectations at what now appears to have been the peak of its "Golden Years."

The Georgian Revival style was seen by the hotel Board of Directors and the Schenectady Chamber of Commerce as a refreshing departure from the then ordinary four-square type of hotel building. The Chamber of Commerce and Schenectady Union-Star "civic pride" campaign stressed that the hotel would be the badly needed social center for the city. The design provided for access to assembly and dining rooms without the necessity for crossing the lobby. The lobby area, with chairs, newsstand, shoeshine chairs, telephone booths, and elevators, was seen as the commercial travelers' habitat. The social entrance on the north side allowed guests to enter a hallway which served the Grill Room and the Tap Room and led to a short stairway to the first floor. There guests could enter the Reception Room or Garden Room, go down three steps into the Lobby Lounge, go up three steps into a glass-walled private dining room, and from there up three more steps into the south wing area which could be divided into the main dining room toward the river, the palm court tea room in the middle, and the assembly room on the front. The social use of the hotel began instantly upon its opening. Conventions were booked; social and professional organizations held their meetings and gala functions in the public rooms; Miss Flint's ballroom dancing classes for children were taught in the hotel for twenty years; the Lobby Lounge, (later the Solarium, now the Mohawk Room) was the scene of many weddings and wedding receptions; the terraces provided cool al fresco dining under colorful umbrellas in the summer; and the Coffee Shop did a thriving business with General Electric Company employees who walked up from the nearby "Works" for lunch.

Over the years many musicians, politicians, entertainers, movie stars, foreign dignitaries, etc. were guests at the Hotel Van Curler. A partial list included Governor and Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Charles A. Lindbergh, Wiley Post, Amelia Earhart, Madame Schuman-Heink, Lewis Lawes (warden of Sing Sing Prison), Robert L, Ripley ("Believe It or Not!"), Admiral Richard E, Byrd, John Philip Sousa, Jack Dempsey, Tony Galento, Tom Mix, Charles Coburn, Greer Garson, Gene Autry, Burr Tillstrom (with his puppets, Kukla and Ollie), Lord Clement Atlee, James A. Farley, Joe Louis, Melvin Douglas, Rudy Vallee, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, W. Averell Harriman held a press conference at the hotel after a rally there during the Fall 1954 gubernatorial campaign. Robert Kennedy was at the hotel in 1960 and 1967. On April 28^th, 1954, Ronald Reagan, then a media spokesman for the General Electric Company, was presented a certificate naming him a Schenectady Patroon by Major Archibald Wemple, himself a descendant of one of Schenectady's original patentees. General Electric Company executives regularly stayed at the Van Curler, and General Electric meetings of various sorts were held in its facilities.

Commercial travelers became more demanding after World War II. The 1954 addition featured central air-conditioning, and every room had a private bath. The older section, the original Hotel Van Curler, was not air-conditioned, and many rooms had only partial baths. Occupancy of the old section became very low, and, even though the annex was doing well, the total occupancy rate threatened the viability of the hotel. It went bankrupt in February 1968. Schenectady County subsequently bought the hotel buildings at public auction for $710,000. It was renovated on the upper floors for classroom and office use. Three emergency exit towers were added. The large public spaces on the first floor were refurbished. The Solarium, originally the Lobby Lounge and now the Mohawk Room, is probably much the same as when it was built. The Van Curler Room, the first floor of the north wing, had been redecorated several times while the hotel was in operation. The hallway and lobby on the front, the Washington Avenue side, have been changed very little.

William L. Stoddart, architect, wrote an article in the February 1926 issue of The Architectural Forum entitled "Designing the Small City Hotel." He said that:

Stoddart's article could have been written about the Hotel Van Curler. Retaining substantial integrity despite alterations for new use, the Hotel Van Curler remains a fine example of small city hotel design from the 1920s and a continuing symbol of civic pride in Schenectady.

Building Description

The Hotel Van Curler occupies a prominent location on the southwest corner of the intersection of State Street and Washington Avenue in Schenectady, New York, State Street becomes the Western Gateway Bridge over the Mohawk River beyond this intersection. Originally only a small parcel around the hotel, the property on which the building stands was subsequently expanded to include the former Van Slyck Island and a portion of the Binnekill (a channel of the Mohawk River). The present property, bounded by the Western Gateway Bridge on the north, Washington Avenue on the east, Interstate 890 on the south, and the Mohawk River on the west, has received substantial development in the form of parking lots, athletic fields, access roads, and new buildings.

The Hotel Van Curler was the first, tallest, and most imposing structure built in Schenectady's community-supported effort to become a small city in services and appearance to keep pace with its great industrial development. Other parts of the small-city development included the extension of State Street to the Mohawk River, the building of the Great Western Gateway Bridge, the building of a sea wall from the American Locomotive Company to the General Electric Company property, the filling in of the Erie Canal to form Erie Boulevard, the widening of Washington Avenue, the construction of the Y.M.C.A. diagonally across State Street from the hotel, the location of a State Barge Canal Terminal, and, later, the addition of the 1954 wing to the hotel. In the process of these and related changes, the hotel's original neighborhood of small frame hotels and rooming houses, warehouses, and wooden residences has disappeared. The integration of the hotel into the business section of Schenectady was assured by these changes. The Hotel Van Curler building has been a prominent landmark in the community since its construction.

The hotel is a Neoclassical inspired building with Georgian and Federal motifs. It is H-shaped with a reinforced concrete structural system and an exterior of red brick trimmed with limestone. The gabled roofs are constructed of heavy wood timbers with wood eaves and cornices and slate roofing. The approximate cubic footage is 1,129,000. Four additions have been made to the original building.

The building's Washington Avenue frontage is 166 feet. The south wing has a depth of 120 feet. The kitchen wing is 41 feet on the west and 50 feet deep. The north wing is 98 feet in depth, shorter than the south wing because of the extension of the main dining room there. The front (Washington Avenue) facade is symmetrical with a few exceptions and contains a rhythmical pattern of 117 windows and doors. The windows are original, but the doors have been replaced.

The terrace porches along the length of the west facade remain in part, extending from the 1954 corridor addition on the south to the emergency exit tower on the north. The original sunken garden area, bounded by the north wing, the south wing, the sea wall, and the semi-circular bay of the lounge, is still in place as the Rose Garden.

The "social entrance" on the north facade was closed when the motor entrance was moved to the south side of the hotel.

The original Hotel Van Curler building survives essentially intact. The high entrance portico is supported by six Corinthian columns. The entablature features dentil molding and a balustrade topped with an urn-shaped decoration above each column. The wings on either side of the central section of the building project 27 feet toward the street. The ground-level floor, or English basement, is of white stone. Shops were originally housed on this level, and the front windows were large undivided expanses of glass. These were replaced in 1954 with six-over-six sash flanked with four-over-four sash. The sidewalk entrance to the south wing consists of a domed portico with classically inspired detail. The matching sidewalk entrance to the north wing has been replaced with Ionic columns supporting a flat entablature with dentil molding. There is a watercourse at the top of the basement level. The first floor above the basement has Palladian windows and large rectangular windows. There are white rosettes between the windows and white stone decoration with a keystone motif on the lintels of the windows. There are swag-decorated friezes over some windows. Over the front doors there are broken-arch pediments with acorn finials set within blind arches. Between the first and second levels of windows is a broad belt course in which brick and stone panels alternate. This belt course is repeated on the central section between the fifth and sixth floors.

The second-floor windows also feature white stone decorative lintels similar to those lintels on the first floor. The four windows directly above the main entrance are capped with pedimented stone lintels.

The third, fourth, and fifth stories have rectangular windows with simple white stone sills and lintels. The center window on the fifth floor or the north wing has a blind stone lunette containing a pedimented lintel on top and an iron balcony across the bottom. The south wing has the same.

The sixth floor does not extend over the wings. The three central windows are surmounted by blind carved lunettes within arched stone lintels and feature low iron balconies. The other windows on this floor have the keystone-decorated lintels seen on the second floor.

The center five-bay section of the main block is delineated by white stone rusticated quoins. This section is topped by an urn-decorated balustrade and center pediment at the roof. Four brick pilasters rise from the sixth-floor belt course to the roof. Each of the two wings features brick quoining and a blind oculus in the gable.

The inner walls of the two wings on the second, third, fourth, and fifth floors have two windows per floor with a small square window between them on the second and fourth floors and an elliptical window between them on the third and fifth floors.

The two-story kitchen wing (basement level plus the first floor) is part of the original structure and continues the pattern of plain-topped windows and white blind-arch-topped windows seen in the main part of the building. The window openings were bricked in in 1954, but the sills, lintels, and decorations remain in place. In 1948 a basement-level addition was made along the south side of this wing. It is brick on the 19 feet of street frontage and white stone on the long south side. In 1956 a small red-brick extension was added on the west end of this area.

In 1954 a major five-story rectangular wing was constructed containing large function rooms on the first floor and typical hotel rooms on the four floors above, It is attached to the west end of the south wing and extends in its long dimension to the south. Two-thirds of the west facade was unaffected by this addition. The 1954 wing is reinforced concrete construction with red brick exterior and white limestone trim. The building has 118,000 square feet of floor area.

Upon the acquisition of the hotel in 1968 for use by the Schenectady County Community College, three emergency exit towers were constructed: one on the east side of the south wing, one on the west side of the north wing; and one on the northern end of the east side of the 1954 wing. They are of contemporary design using brick and limestone trim and do not contribute to the significance of the Hotel Van Curler.

When the hotel was converted in 1968 for use as a college, the second through the sixth floors were gutted and reconstructed and no longer contain any significant architectural features. The large function rooms and the lobby on the first floor of the original hotel have been retained, with the decoration changes that had been made in 1954. These rooms contribute to the significance of the building. The first floor in the 1954 annex retains most of its original floor plan.

The first floor of the interior contains essentially the same arrangement of spaces as in 1925. The Lobby (earlier the Lobby Promenade) is finished in the Georgian style with pilasters, pillars, and paneled walls. The floor is the original terrazzo with a marble wall base. Two hydraulic elevators off this main lobby continue to provide convenience without the necessity of an elevator penthouse on the roof. Over the double doors to the Lobby Lounge is a lunette with a keystone design at the top. On either side of these doors is a semi-cylindrical niche and beyond that a large framed panel with a broken arch pediment top with an acorn finial, a repeat of the design over the front doors.

The Lobby Lounge (the Mohawk Room in 1985) measures 50 x 33 feet and features a semi-circular wall with five sets of double doors, which open onto the terrace overlooking the sunken garden and, farther on, the Mohawk River. The original fireplace and the carved lunettes above the interior doors remain. The fanlights above the outside double doors are still visible from the outside; however, inside they are covered with large carved shells which conceal indirect lighting. These shells and the replacement of the chandelier were part of the 1954 redecoration,

The Reception Room (now the president's office) retains its original shape, size, and design features such as moldings and three sets of double doors, one set opening onto the terrace. A fourth set of doors is retained on the Lobby Lounge side, but the door frame on the Reception Room side is filled in with bookshelves.

The Dining Room and Assembly Room (in use in combination as the Van Curler Room in 1985) are divided by folding doors and cover the entire first floor of the south wing. The Palladian windows on the Washington Avenue wall and the eastern ends of the north and south walls are in place. One window surround has been used as the entrance to the emergency exit tower on the southeast corner. The original corresponding windows at the west end of the combined rooms were lost when the 1954 annex was built. These are now interior walls. The original columns along the long walls were removed and the high ceilings were lowered when the heating and cooling ducts were installed in 1954. The rooms had been renamed the Ballroom by that time,

The small private dining room between the Lobby Lounge and the large Dining Room has become part of the corridor connecting the original building and the 1954 annex, The wall on the west has been opened up almost completely. The wall on the east retains one set of double doors; the matching set of doors on the east wall has been removed and the door frame surrounds the corridor. The broad steps and double doors on the other two walls remain. The only chandelier remaining from the original hotel hangs in this area.

Aerial, looking southeast (1985)

Aerial, looking west (1970)

East facade, looking east (1985)

Facing east (1925)

South facade, looking south (1985)

West facade, looking west (1985)

North facade, looking northwest (1985)

North facade, looking north (1985)

West terrace (1985)

West terrace, (1925)

Lobby (1985)

Lobby (1925)

Solarium (Mohawk Room) (1985)

Solarium (1925)