Broadway in the 1890s was said to have a “cham­pagne sparkle.” “All the world came to Broadway to shop, to dine, to flirt, to find amusement, and to meet acquaintances,” wrote Henry Collins Brown, curator of the Museum of the City of New York. The Hotel Martinique opened in 1900 amidst the boom of hotel and theater life on Broadway. The Metropolitan Opera stood close by on 39th Street and a series of other fine hotels reached up to Times Square.

Shortly after the Hotel Martinique opened, plans to open Pennsylvania Station were announced and Macy’s opened on Herald Square while the PATH extended to 33rd Street. It was the perfect time for William R. H. Martin, owner and namesake of the Hotel Martinique, to submit the plans to double the size of the Hotel Mar­tinique. Martin hired the Hotel Martinique’s original architect, the renowned Henry Hardenbergh who also designed the Dakota Apartments, the original Waldorf Astoria Hotels and the Plaza Hotel.

On December 21, 1910, the enlarged Hotel Martinique opened with a total of 600 rooms. As a line of elegantly dressed guests arrived in horse drawn carriages at this Beaux Arts masterpiece they were immediately im­pressed. Guests entered into a vast lobby, which also featured an inspiring mosaic-tile floor and an 18-story spiral staircase, both of which are still very much intact today. The lobby proudly displayed a stunning, large, floor standing, historic clock. It was built in the 15th Century T.H. Crawford, Royal Clockmaker to King James I-King of Scots.

A long-running success story, The PGA of America grew from a meeting on April 10, 1916, in the Martinique's diminutive boardroom where 78 professionals were elected to membership and formed the springboard into the world's largest working sports organization with 27,000 men and women professionals.The PGA of America needed a catalyst at its founding, and the support came through department store magnate and philanthropist, Rodman Wanamaker.

The Hotel Martinique was a favorite hangout for Vaudeville entertainers, Flappers, Broadway actors, artists and writers. In fact, the famous American novelist George Barr McCutcheon died suddenly on October 23, 1928 at a luncheon at the Dutch Treat Club in the Hotel Martinique.

The Empire State Building’s Grand Opening was on May 1, 1931, which happened to be two years before the end of Prohibition. Construction took just 14 months to complete. Steps away, with champagne in hand, guests at the Dutch Room in the Hotel Marti­nique illegally toasted to their proud new neighbor.

The Hotel Martinique underwent a complete restora­tion in 1996 requiring the hotel to close for two years. On May 5, 1998, the Hotel Martinique was granted landmark status by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. The hotel is now called the Radisson Martinique on Broadway.

Just as it was in 1900, The Hotel Martinique is a stunning Beaux Arts building in the heart of midtown Manhattan. Still amidst the excitement, it is just blocks away from the Empire State Building, Broad­way Theater’s, Madison Square Garden, Penn Station, Macy’s and the Chelsea art galleries and restaurants.