New York Palace Budapest (building)

The New York Palace in Budapest's VII district, located at Erzsébet körút numbers 9–11, is a four‑storey historicist palace built in 1894, one of the most characteristic and most imposing buildings on the Grand Boulevard. Originally constructed as an insurance company headquarters that also included rental apartments, it functioned as an office building after 1945. Since 2006 it has been a luxury hotel, operating since 2020 under the name Anantara New York Palace Budapest Hotel. Of cultural‑historical significance is the New York Café on its ground floor (named Hungária Café between 1954 and 1989), which, through its literary and artistic societies and café editorial offices formed in the first third of the 20th century, entered Hungarian cultural history.

History

The legally trained Miksa Arányi studied in Paris from 1882 on a ministerial scholarship and also sent reports from the French capital to domestic newspapers. At his regular haunt, the Café de la Paix, he made acquaintances with the director of the American insurance company New York Life Insurance Company. Upon his return, in 1884 he received a commission to organise the company's activities in Hungary. As company manager and Hungarian representative, on 7 June 1887 he registered the Budapest branch of the insurance company under the name New York Life Insurance Society at the court of law, with its headquarters at 20 Koronaherczeg (now Petőfi Sándor) Street. In 1891 the company announced a competition for the construction of a representative headquarters combined with rental apartments. Of the eight submissions, the plan prepared by Alajos Hauszmann with the cooperation of Flóris Korb and Kálmán Giergl won the judges' favour. General construction was entrusted to the building firm of József Pucher, but several highly prestigious craftsmen of the era could also take part in the works (Sándor Hauszmann, József Walla and others), and the Ganz, Schlick and Zsolnay factories were involved in the delivery of mechanical and architectural decorative elements. The exterior and interior plastic and surface‑decorating works were carried out by sculptors Károly Senyei, Miklós Köllő and Antal Szabó, as well as painters Gusztáv Mannheimer and Ferenc Eisenhut. Over time, the largely destroyed glass paintings originated from Walther Gida's workshop.

The four‑storey, historicist‑style palace, as well as the café occupying its ground floor, opened on 23 October 1894. According to the signage, the building’s main function was an office building, but the larger part of the floor area was occupied by rental apartments, and on the ground floor, besides the café, several smaller retail premises also operated. At the turn of the century the ground‑floor institution, which earned literary café status, made the building emblematic. In 1937 the building changed owner: through a swap deal the new owner became Nova Közlekedési és Ipari Rt., which also had a chemical‑industry profile. According to the company management’s plans, the building would have been transformed into a luxury hotel. After 1945 the building underwent modernization, but soon the café was closed, and the building became the office of the Lapkiadó Vállalat, a kind of “press palace” that housed numerous editorial offices.

After the 1990 regime change, the owner state could not utilize or sell the building for a decade. Among the possibilities were its use as an office building, a boutique store, a mixed-use office and residential building corresponding to the original, and even the conversion of the building for the purposes of the National Theatre was considered. Finally, in 2000 it was decided to convert it for hotel use. After several unsuccessful bids, negotiations began between the owner State Privatization and Asset Management Co. Ltd. and the Italian real estate developer Boscolo Group. The parties signed the sale contract on 14 November 2000, which, besides the New York Palace, also covered the building complex bounded by Erzsébet Boulevard, Dohány Street and Osvát Street. The investor, who committed to preserving the monument value and appearance, allocated 8 billion forints for the reconstruction of the New York Café, the creation of a five‑star, 350‑room luxury hotel, a conference centre, serviced apartments and an underground car park. According to the original plans, the first two phases of the works, the café reconstruction and the hotel construction, which began in spring 2001, were to be completed by the end of 2002, and the third phase, the conversion of the former Athenaeum printing house block, was to be finished by the end of 2004. Primarily due to the decline in tourism demand and the competitive situation caused by an oversupply of hotels in Budapest, the plans changed during execution – the investor decided to create fewer but more demanding, exclusive hotel rooms – and the implementation was delayed. Ultimately, at more than twice the original budget, the building opened on 5 May 2006 as the Boscolo New York Palace Hotel, the capital’s fourteenth – but, in terms of room rates, the most expensive – luxury hotel, covering 14 000 square metres, with two presidential suites and 105 rooms, a conference centre capable of accommodating 175 people, and on the ground floor the trial operation of the former glamorous New York Café. The building’s renovation was awarded the Europa Nostra medal in 2007.

The Boscolo family's business has meanwhile fallen into financial trouble, so with the purchase of the debts the properties came into the hands of the American investment group Värde Partners in 2016. After the transformation of the Boscolo group, the hotels were operated under the brand The Dedica Anthology Hotels. In January 2020 Värde Partners transferred the portfolio to the hotel division of the French Covivio group, Covivio Hotels Group, which commissioned the Spanish NH Hotels Group to operate the hotels. NH Hotels renamed the hotel to the Anantara brand from 1 June 2020. Together with the suites, a 185‑room hotel purchased the adjacent building of the Athenaeum printing house, which after demolition was replaced by an apartment building consisting of 138 residential units.[forrás?]