United States of America New York City’s The Commodore Hotel
1919-67 Silver
Oval Medal
30mm x 54mm (22.50 grams) S, Colonial period ship sailing 1/3 left,
radiant compass top right.
The COMMODORE NEW YORK GORHAM CO, Ornate twisted border around
inscription.
This
may be a room key fob. Gorham had the contract for all the silverplate
in the hotel. The ship appears to be the transitional sail and steam
yacht Alva, owned by Vanderbilt and was the first of his yachts to be
named for his wife.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.
The Commodore Hotel was developed as part of “Terminal City”, a complex of palatial hotels and offices connected to Grand Central Terminal and all owned by the New York State Realty and Terminal Company (NYSRTC), a division of the New York Central Railroad (NYCRR). The Commodore was named after “Commodore” Cornelius Vanderbilt, the founder of NYCRR; a statue of Vanderbilt is located outside the hotel. The Commodore was designed by Warren & Wetmore and leased by the NYSRTC to the Bowman-Biltmore Hotels Corporation, of which John McEntee Bowman was president.
The Commodore opened on January 28, 1919. Herbert R. Stone, of NYSRTC, oversaw the decor of its 2,000 rooms. The lobby, called the “Most Beautiful Lobby in The World,” was the single largest room in the hotel, with modern low ceilings and a waterfall designed by John B. Smeraldi. A group of conventioneers once told Bowman that “New York City was like a circus,” so the next day Bowman, ever a showman, arranged to place a circus, complete with elephants, in the grand ballroom. Another popular spot was the Century Room, which boasted its own orchestra. The Commodore shared a parking garage with its sister hotel, the New York Biltmore Hotel, which had been Bowman-Biltmore’s first hotel investment. Another Terminal City property – The Roosevelt Hotel, originally a United Hotel asset – merged with Bowman-Biltmore Corporation on March 4, 1929, giving Terminal City access to all railroad passenger traffic in and out of New York City. One notable person to have stayed at The Commodore was Albert Einstein, who stayed at the hotel for a few weeks in April 1921 during his tour of the east coast of the U.S. promoting the creation of Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
The Commodore was successful for decades, and in June 1967, NYCRR – which by then was running the hotel through a division called Realty Hotels – upgraded the Commodore with a 3.4 million-dollar refurbishment. On May 10, 1972, while John R. Garside was the hotel’s general manager, the Commodore became the first hotel in New York City to show in-room movies through Player Cinema Systems. However, by the late 1970s, both the railroad (now Penn Central, following merger with the Pennsylvania Railroad) and the hotel had become less successful. On May 11, 1977, the now-bankrupt railroad’s asset manager, Victor Palmieri, told the city that the Commodore had lost $1.5 million in 1976 and might have to be shuttered.
At that point, Donald Trump reached an option agreement with Penn Central to purchase the Commodore. Trump, however, did not have the $250,000 necessary to secure the option. Nevertheless, Trump’s father, Fred Trump, had a long time political connection through the Brooklyn Democratic machine to then-Mayor Abraham Beame. Despite the city being in the midst of the worst fiscal crisis in its history, Beame’s deputy mayor, Stanley Friedman, pushed through a 40-year, $400 million tax abatement on the property. Asked by city officials to supply a copy of the agreement with Penn Central, Trump sent the option agreement paperwork minus the signatures. The abatement moved forward as if the agreement had been signed and as if Trump had paid to secure the option. Trump was then able to convince the Hyatt hotel chain to partner with the Trump Organization and purchase the Commodore.
The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles (9.8 million km2), the United States is the world’s third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe’s 3.9 million square miles (10.1 million km2). With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city by population is New York. Forty-eight states and the capital’s federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico. The State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world’s 17 megadiverse countries.
Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century. The United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the French and Indian War led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775, and the subsequent Declaration of Independence in 1776. The war ended in 1783 with the United States becoming the first country to gain independence from a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, with the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, being ratified in 1791 to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. The United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century, acquiring new territories, displacing Native American tribes, and gradually admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848.
During the second half of the 19th century, the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery. By the end of the century, the United States had extended into the Pacific Ocean, and its economy, driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution, began to soar. The Spanish-American War and World War I confirmed the country’s status as a global military power. The United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country to develop nuclear weapons, the only country to use them in warfare, and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in the Space Race, culminating with the 1969 Moon landing. The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world’s sole superpower.
The United States is the world’s oldest surviving federation. It is a federal republic and a representative democracy, “in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law”. The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States (OAS), and other international organizations. The United States is a highly developed country, with the world’s largest economy by nominal GDP and second-largest economy by PPP, accounting for approximately a quarter of global GDP. The U.S. economy is largely post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge-based activities, although the manufacturing sector remains the second-largest in the world. The United States is the world’s largest importer and the second largest exporter of goods, by value. Although its population is only 4.3% of the world total, the U.S. holds 33% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share of global wealth concentrated in a single country. It also suffers from growing levels of income inequality and wealth inequality.
The United States ranks among the highest nations in several measures of socioeconomic performance, including human development, per capita GDP, and productivity per person. The United States is the foremost military power in the world, making up a third of global military spending, and is a leading political, cultural, and scientific force internationally.
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