The Hotel Albert

The next part of what is now the Albert complex to be built was directly west of the St. Stephen. Also commissioned by Rosenbaum, it was the first section of today’s complex to use the Albert name (Rosenbaum’s given name), located on the southeast corner of University Place and East 11th Street. Built in 1881-82 as a high-end apartment house or “French Flats,” and called the Albert Apartment House, it was one of the earliest examples in New York of the then-novel concept of apartment house design for middle- or upper-class residents. It was designed by the great architect Henry Hardenbergh, designer of perhaps the most famous and beloved of all of New York’s early apartment houses, Central Park West’s the Dakota (1880-84), as well as other great New York City landmarks such as the Schermerhorn Building located just a few blocks away on Lafayette Street, and the Plaza Hotel. In 1887, the Albert Apartments was converted into a hotel, rechristened the Hotel Albert. Just a few years later in 1895 the Hotel Albert absorbed the neighboring St. Stephen, thus beginning the Albert’s outward sprawl.