Jane Hotel, West Street, New York City

The Jane Hotel, originally the American Seamen's Friend Society Sailors' Home and Institute, is a boutique hotel at 113 Jane Street, on the northeastern corner of West Street, near the Hudson River waterfront, in the West Village, Manhattan. It was designated a New York City landmark in 2000.

The American Seamen’s Friend Society was established in 1828, seeking to improve the social welfare and cultural influences of the tens of thousands of sailors who passed through New York Harbor.

The building was originally built as a lodging house for seamen with cabin-like rooms. It was constructed in 1907-1908 to the Georgian style design of architect William A. Boring. He was formerly a partner in Boring & Tilton, most noted as the firm that won the 1897 competition for new buildings at the U.S. Immigration Station on Ellis Island.

Jane Hotel has a red brick façade with cast-stone detailing and is mostly five stories tall, with a main entrance portico on Jane Street. There is a six-story polygonal tower at the corner of West and Jane streets, which was originally surmounted by a beacon. It had originally 156 rooms for seamen, and others for officers and engineers and cooks and stewards. The facilities included separate amusement rooms for each of the three groups, an auditorium with 400 seats, a chapel and a bowling alley.

In 1912, the survivors of the Titanic stayed at the hotel until the end of the American Inquiry into the ship’s sinking. The surviving crew held a memorial service at the hotel four days after the ship sank.

In 1931 the society joined with other organizations to build a more modern shelter at 20th Street and the Hudson River, and the 1908 building was converted to an annex. The society closed in the 1980s.

In 1944, the hotel was called the Seaman’s Relief Center and the property was conveyed to the YMCA, which removed a beacon from the tower in 1946. Since then it has been a residential and transient hotel. By the 1950s it was the Jane West Hotel. Over the years, the ground story has been used for various purposes, including as a bar and grill, a clubhouse, a nightclub, the off-Broadway Jane Street Theater, and a ballroom.

It was renamed the Hotel Riverview by the 1980s. It was acquired in 2008 by a group who renovated the venue and renamed it Jane Hotel, which was operated as a boutique hotel by BD Hotels. The hotelier Jeff Klein acquired the Jane in 2022 and converted its ballroom into a private club.