Original title:
Delmonico's Hotel. Engraving signed
in the lower right corner and published in Putnam's Monthly Magazine, April
1853. It shows the two buildings of Delmonico's Hotel (21-27 Broadway), the one
on the southwest corner of Morris Street and the adjacent building to the south
(23 Broadway),
facing Bowling Green. The hotel was constructed by
Delmonico brothers
and opened in 1846 (23 Broadway opened in 1847). The former buildings were destroyed by the
Great Fire of July 1845.
Delmonico's Hotel became Stevens House in 1856, demolished in 1919 to make way
for the Cunard Building.
The building on the left, at 17-19 Broadway was known as the "house of lions" for the two iron lions that stood on granite bases at the entrance steps. It was also erected after the Great Fire of 1845. Before 1853, it was expanded to six floors and demolished in 1915 to the needs of the Broadway subway.
Delmonico brothers established a French Restaurant in 1830 at 25 William Street and expanded their business to several places in New York City. Below, part of the text that accompanies the engraving above in the "Hotels and Restaurants" section of the magazine:
«A bare enumeration of the hotels of New-York would tell the whole story of her commercial greatness, and the prosperity of the country of which she is the metropolis. Our hotel-keepers bear as little resemblance to the Will Bonifaces of the past century, whom we read of in English novels, as Baron Rothschild bears to Isaac of York. Hotel-keeping has become a great business, requiring a large capital, a knowledge of the world, intelligence, liberality, and an enterprising spirit. — There are, in Broadway alone, fifteen large first-class hotels, and innumerable restaurants cafés, and boarding-houses, some of them large enough, and splendid enough, to be included in the list of hotels. The oldest hotel in the city is the United States, formerly Holt’s, an immense, and well-constructed marble building, fronting on Pearl, Fulton, and Water streets. ... The next in age, and the first in reputation, is the Astor House, which is probably more widely known than any other hotel in the world. ...
The first house in Broadway, and the only ante-revolutionary building left in this great artery of our city is the Washington [former site of Kennedy Mansion], a hotel and restaurant; a few doors above on the same side of the street, on the corner of Morris-street, and opposite that little oval spot of verdure, with its white marble fountain in the centre, called the Bowling Green, and which was once decorated with a leaden statue of George the Third, is Delmonico’s Hotel and restaurant, kept on what is called the “European plan” .The other restaurant of the Delmonicos is on the corner of South William-street and Beaver-street ; it has been the most renowned “eating house” in New-York during the past twenty years, and the principal resort of the French and German merchants who do business in the lower part of the city. The first Delmonico’s was in William-street, and was destroyed in the great fire of 1835, after which the two brothers opened their restaurant in Broad-street, while their present house was building. The business was established by the father and uncle of the present proprietor, who emigrated to this country from Switzerland some thirty years ago. Delmonico’s in Broadway includes but two of the buildings given in the engraving. It is a favorite hotel with foreigners, and keeps up its reputation for excellent cookery. Above Delmonico’s, and just below Wall street, is Judson’s Hotel, which is also kept on the European plan, and has a public restaurant, which is a favorite dining place for “ down town” merchants. ...»
