Historic Jane Hotel in West Village to be Converted to Members-Only Club
By: Benyamin Davidsons
The Jane Hotel, Manhattan’s historic West Village hotel, has plans to change some of its public spaces into a members-only club.
As reported by the NY Post, the legendary hotel will stay open for anyone to book rooms at, but the historic grand ballroom and select public spaces will be turned into a private lounge only for members and their guests. The reports say the hotel is about to be sold to hotelier Jeff Klein.
The Landmark building, near 11th Ave, which boasts Hudson River views, was built in 1908 as a home for travelling sailors, and was restored on its 100th anniversary in 2008. The suites were originally designed to imitate cabin-like rooms on a ship, by William A. Boring, the architect renowned for Ellis Island’s station.
Last week, a confusing press release was sent out announcing that “The Jane is shutting down slowly,” its closure marking “the end of an era in NYC,” during which time celebrities including “Jennifer Aniston, Kirsten Dunst, Mary-Kate Olsen and Jonah Hill” attended “countless infamous parties” in the 114-year-old venue’s ballroom and rooftop”. The statement caused a bit of puzzlement with patrons thinking the hotel was to be closed. “An original statement was incorrect,” a publicity agent later told The Post.
The ballroom and rooftop bar will be closed to the public as of Nov. 18. The famed ballroom had hosted rock-n-roll concerts in the 80s and 90s and later had served as a hotspot hosting off-Broadway theatres. The venue will become a restaurant reserved for use only by members of SVB New York, which is a branch of Klein’s West Hollywood-based San Vincente Bungalows club. The hotel’s rooftop bar will be converted into a landscaped, outdoor lounge for the club members.
The hotel’s sale to Klein has not officially gone through yet, and is still impending. The Post clarified via insider sources, that the next owner does not have plans to close the hotel itself, only transform some of the venues. The selected spaces will undergo renovations, but the hotel is expected to stay open throughout. The club, SVB New York, will cost $135 a month and members will gain access to a screening room for unreleased films, a billiards room, multiple living rooms, a dance room and a private entrance, separate from the hotel guests.
The stately red-brick hotel has a colorful history, having started out in the early 1900s as a 25-cents-per-night American Seamen’s Friend Society Sailors’ Home and Institute. Four years later, after the RMS Titanic sank, the ship’s survivors were housed at the hotel throughout the inquest into the sinking. The YMCA took over the building in 1944, changing the name to the Jane West Hotel.
By the 1980s, the hotel become somewhat of a long-term housing for drug addicts and persons on skid row. In 2008, developers Sean MacPherson and Eric Goode gave the hotel a chic revamping, turning it into a downtown party destination and comparatively affordable short-term housing. The building has had a landmark designation protecting it since 2000.
