Many memories from this hotel as a teen visiting NYC for the first time. Splitting a room with people I'd only met online. Meeting Jello Biafra in the lobby. Vo

Many memories from this hotel as a teen visiting NYC for the first time. Splitting a room with people I'd only met online. Meeting Jello Biafra in the lobby. Volunteering for HOPE. Trying out a Segway for the first time on a level with floor-to-ceiling windows. Standing on the roof with friends, taking in the city skyline, glancing over at the open login of the NT4.0 Workstation running the elevator motor controls. Walking the back passageways, inspecting ancient NYTel/NYNEX cross boxes, taking the giant service elevators up and down, walking through the abandoned floors covered in dust. When I came back as an adult, this hotel was the cheapest room in the city, and it showed. Run down and falling apart. It's extremely hard to turn a profit on a hotel this large; the maintenance is constant and expensive, and if you skimp on anything (like shuttering a few floors) they just get worse over time. There was absolutely a time when it was a money maker, but that time is gone. I just wish they could have converted it into apartments. It would have taken a big investment, but I think the city owed it to both the building's history, and the people trying to "make it" in the big apple.