In a message dated 4/3/2004 10:08:58 PM Eastern Standard Time, jferatetours@ writes:
There was no need to demolish the Biltmore Garage, so it is still there - complete with its cream-colored Guastavino tile ceilings and its yellow (Kreischer?) brick floors. I suspect the yellow brick is the same brick that was once used to pave the walkway up Park Avenue, but I have not researched that.
I haven't been to the site yet, but plan to go on Monday. But could I ask if you have >>>constructive knowledge<<< that this was anything more than a freight entrance? Is the "Parking" sign in period script or signage? Or do you have a basement floor plan, brochure or other document indicating a "garage".
In about 12,000 words published on the new Biltmore hotel in 1913-1915, and extensive coverage of its ice plant, telephone system, etc., there is no mention of a garage. Indeed, with subsurface space being at a premium (with the railroad nearby, and with subsurface pedestrian access, and with the builders of the hotel themselves constructing and operating a garage designed in 1917, it seems unlikely that the owners would have given over basement space to a garage in a hotel with several thousand rooms. Even a 200 place garage in the basement would have required a 36,000 square foot area just for the cars, not to mention the travel lanes.
I have found a first floor plan - which shows the indentation on 44th Street, but does not identify the opening - but not (yet) a basement plan.
Many buildings at this time were built with off-street loading and unloading docks - the Belnord, the Apthorp, Lord & Taylor, are among those.
It is not dispositive that a garage in the Biltmore was not listed in period advertisements and yellow pages-type sources (since it might have been a "captive" operation), but I do note that a search in the Times for "Biltmore Hotel" AND "garage" yields no relevant results. Ads for the Bank of America building reference only a "freight entrance", not parking, although of course that could have been just a later condition.
Best, Christopher