Novotel New York Times Square — 226 West 52nd Street
The mystery 'Norwest' building becomes a plausible Times Square hotel construction story once the source is read correctly as Novotel.
M Social Hotel New York. Photographed in 2024; a current view, not a construction-period photograph.
Current view · 2024 · Photo: Kidfly182 · CC BY 4.0 · Source
Why this project matters
- Project identity
- Verified
- Kelly connection
- Family source
- Masonry scope
- Probable
Rita’s list
Transcription: Novotel Building — 1982
Recorded by Rita Bartscherer · Bartscherer family record
KM-163
2 of two
“Novotel Building — 1982”
The Novotel New York opened at 226 West 52nd Street in 1984, two years after Joseph's entry.
The 1982 Novotel project captures the wave of hotel and commercial construction reshaping Times Square before its larger 1990s transformation.
What Kelly did here
Family source
Probable
Likely: selective masonry alteration: likely CMU/block partitions and fire-rated walls, infill or enlargement of openings, patching/rebuilding of existing masonry, and localized brick/stone work rather than the building's original structural frame.
This scope is recorded as probable, not documented. It is a disciplined reading of the building and the trade practice of the period, not a contract-level record of Kelly’s work.
The construction team
- 01Architect
Gruzen & Partners / Schultze & Weaver
What happened to it
Still standing / rebranded as M Social Hotel Times Square
Sources
4 citedOpen →
- 01skyscrapercenter.com
11610
- 02wirednewyork.com
gruzen samton
- 03commercialobserver.com
novotel times square hotel closes due to covid 19
- 04commons.wikimedia.org
File:M Social Hotel New York 001.jpg
- Kidfly182 · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons · 2024-09-17
M Social Hotel New York. Photographed in 2024; a current view, not a construction-period photograph.
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