The operator of New York City’s historic Martinique hotel, one of Manhattan’s oldest, filed for chapter 11 protection, hoping for relief from rent payments and union obligations as the Covid-19 pandemic hammers the Big Apple’s lodging market, the Wall Street Journal reported. Built in 1897 in a French Renaissance style at 32nd Street and Broadway, the Martinique earned a notorious reputation as a “welfare hotel” in the 1970s and ’80s, when municipal leaders used it to house the city’s burgeoning homeless population. Developer Harold Thurman acquired the Martinique in a 99-year lease in 1989, a year after the city stopped using the hotel for emergency housing. Reborn under the Holiday Inn banner, the Martinique was designated a city landmark in 1998. He still owns the hotel. The 531-room Martinique, now carrying the Hilton brand, features a restaurant and wine bar, more than 33,000 square feet of retail space and a concierge desk, according to court papers filed by Brad Thurman, vice president of Herald Hotel Associates LP, the hotel’s operator. In addition to the pandemic’s devastating impact on hotel occupancy, he blamed the Martinique’s financial woes on a $3.5 million employee severance bill and a failure to strike deals with the hotel’s landlord, Seasons Affiliates, and mortgage lender. (Subscription required.)
