The Carter Hotel (New York City, New York)

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253-foot, 24-story Art-Deco hotel completed in 1930. Designed by Emery Roth, it was called the Dixie Hotel until October 1976. The hotel's chief distinction was the Central Union Bus Terminal, below the lobby. It had a 35-foot-diameter turntable on which arriving buses could be spun around for departure. (The terminal closed in 1957, but the turntable can still be seen in the hotel garage.) Even though the name didn't change to the Carter until 1976, the hotel had been bought by the Carter Hotels Corporation in 1942. Prior to being sold and renovated in 2014, the hotel had the dubious distinction of being rated the dirtiest hotel in the city.

The building's four main facades are clad in buff-colored brick, with a 2-story base that has been resurfaced in light-colored polished granite at the ground floor and limestone blocks at the 2nd floor. The recessed main entrance is at the east end, with two sets of metal-and-glass doors. To the right is a storefront, an entrance to the underground parking garage, and a loading dock with a small service entrance at the west end. The 2nd floor has four single-windows at the west end, and a small double-window above the storefront; the west end of the ground floor was previously occupied by Cheetah's Gentlemen's Club.

The upper floors are symmetrical, spanning 18 total bays across the north facade. Both ends have four bays of single-windows flanked on both sides by bays of narrow double-windows; the six middle bays also have narrow double-windows. Each window bay is slightly recessed between piers that rise uninterrupted to the 13th floor, where they are decorate with Art-Deco vertical lines just below the setbacks at the end bays. At the middle bays the five center piers narrow to band of vertical lines from the 13th-15th floor, where the middle section sets back. At the 13th-15th floors the middle bays are further recessed between the piers, and there are angled corners at the ends of the middle section at the 14th-15th floors. The end bays set back again above the 17th floor, with the window organization changing to paired windows. In the middle section the window organization changes to two bays of paired windows at the left, and three bays of single-windows at the right, flanked by a bay of narrower windows on each side. Above the 19th floor, all but the the inner bay of paired windows and inner bay of single-windows, now flanked by half-bays of narrow windows, set back, followed by a full setback above the 21st floor. There is a final setback above the 23rd floor at the middle section, with a tall mechanical penthouse rising up above the outer roof lines; the penthouse is tallest at the center, lined with three vertical grooves, while the lower sides sections each have two vertical grooves. There is an additional elevator penthouse at the northwest corner of the roof.

The rear, south-facing facade has a recessed central light court. The wings on each side have setbacks above the 11th, 13th, 15th, 17th, 19th, 21st, and 23rd floors, and are also set back from the north part of the east and west facades. These narrower side facades have two bays of single-windows separated by a bay of small bathrooms windows at the north section, and four bays of windows (double-windows except for the south bay) at the set-back south section.

A "CARTER HOTEL" sign is mounted at the top of the mechanical penthouse, and another, vertical sign (reading "HOTEL CARTER" from the top to bottom) is attached to the east end of the north facade, mounted on projecting metal brackets, running from the 8th to the 17th floor. The renovated hotel now has 615 guestrooms.

www.carterhotel.com/