There are a total of 1,025 rooms in the hotel, including 52 suites. The Presidential Suite has four bedrooms, a kitchen, formal living and dining areas, and a wrap-around terrace. The rooms are traditionally decorated, with mahogany wood furniture and light-colored bed coverings. There are several eateries within the hotel. They include:
The "Roosevelt Grill", which serves American food and regional specialties for breakfast.
The "Madison Club Lounge", a bar and lounge which has a mahogany bar and features stained glass windows and a pair of fireplaces.
The "Vander Bar", a bistro with modern decor, serving craft beers
The Roosevelt has of meeting and exhibit space, including two ballrooms and 17 additional meeting rooms ranging in size from. It offers a business center. Other services include a concierge, fitness center, safety deposit boxes, valet laundry, valet or self-parking, and 15 retail tenants.
History
The Roosevelt Hotel, opened on September 23, 1924, was built by Niagara Falls businessman Frank A. Dudley and operated by the United Hotels Company. The hotel was designed by the architecture firm George B. Post & Son, and leased from The New York State Realty and Terminal Company, a division of the New York Central Railroad. The hotel, built at a cost of $12,000,000, was the first to incorporate store fronts instead of lounges in its sidewalk facades, as the latter had been prohibited due to Prohibition. The Roosevelt Hotel was at one time linked with Grand Central Terminal via an underground passage that connected the hotel to the train terminal. The Roosevelt housed the first guest pet facility and child care service in The Teddy Bear Room and had the first in-house doctor. Conrad Hilton purchased the Roosevelt in 1943 calling her "a fine hotel with grand spaces" and even though he eventually owned many other hotels in New York, including The Plaza and The Waldorf Astoria, he chose the Roosevelt's Presidential Suite as his home. In 1947, the Roosevelt became the first hotel to have a television set in every room. Beginning in 1979, the hotel was leased by the Pakistan International Airlines through its investment arm PIA Investments Ltd., with an option to purchase the building after 20 years. Prince Faisal bin Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia was one of the investors in the 1979 deal. In 1999, PIA exercised their option and bought the hotel for $36.5 million, after a legal battle with owner Paul Milstein, who claimed it was worth much more. In 2005, PIA bought out its Saudi partner in a deal that included the prince's share in Hôtel Scribe in Paris in exchange for $40 million and PIA's share of the Riyadh Minhal Hotel. PIA has since controlled 99 percent interest in the hotel, while the Saudis have only 1 percent. In July 2007, after a major $65 million renovation, PIA announced that it was putting the hotel up for sale. The increasing profitability of the hotel, at the same time as the airline itself started to incur massive losses, resulted in the sale being abandoned. On January 1, 2011 The Roosevelt Hotel's General Manager stated the hotel is once again undergoing extensive renovations but will remain open during the process. In July 2020, Pakistan's Cabinet Committee on Privatization decided to run the hotel through a joint venture rather than privatising it.
Notable events
began leading the house band of the Roosevelt Grill in 1929; it was here that Lombardo also began holding an annual New Year's Everadio broadcast with his band The Royal Canadians. Lawrence Welk began his career at the Roosevelt Hotel in the summers while Lombardo took his music to Long Island. Music was piped live into each room via radio. Hugo Gernsback started WRNY from a room on the 18th floor of The Roosevelt broadcasting live via a 125-foot tower on the roof. From 1943 to 1955 the Roosevelt Hotel served as the New York City office and residence of Governor Thomas E. Dewey. Dewey's primary residence was his farm in Pawling, in Upstate New York, but he used Suite 1527 in the Roosevelt to conduct most of his official business in the city. In the famous 1948 presidential election, Dewey, his family, and staff listened to the election returns in Suite 1527 of the Roosevelt; in the election Dewey lost to incumbent President Harry Truman in one of the greatest political upsets in American history. Though the civil rights act of 1964 banned discrimination in public accommodations, the Men's Grill at the Roosevelt refused to admit women until a New York City law was passed in 1970. The law prohibited banning women by places that were "sexegrated" on the grounds that, though they welcomed the public, they were private clubs.
