The Half Moon Hotel was designed by the architectural firm George B. Post & Sons and completed in 1927. It was located along the boardwalk on Coney Island between West 28th and West 29th Streets, purportedly near the spot where Henry Hudson landed. The 400 room hotel was designed in the Spanish Colonial style with a red brick and terra cotta facade, clay roof tiles, and ornamented with relief busts, medallions with ships on them, urns, and finials. The tallest part of the building was a 16-story curvilinear roofscape that housed the water tower, while its central section was 14 stories and was flanked by two 13-story sections, and two 11-story wings. Never quite attaining the popularity it strived for, the hotel was bought and repurposed as a hospital in 1949 and then converted into a nursing home by the Metropolitan Jewish Geriatric Center in 1954. During its conversion from hotel to hospital and nursing home, the interior of the building was substantially altered during the 1950s through the 1970s. Following the completion of a new building to house the Metropolitan Jewish Geriatric Center, the former Half Moon Hotel was demolished in 1996.
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Sources:
- Gray, Christopher. "Streetscapes: The Half Moon Hotel; A Symbol of Coney Island Is About to Be eclipsed." New York Times, May 7, 1989. Accessed October 4, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/07/realestate/streetscapes-half-moon-hotel-symbol-coney-island-about-be-eclipsed.html
From the guide to the Photographs of the former Half Moon Hotel on Coney Island, 1991, (Brooklyn Historical Society)
