Ghost Hotel: 1900

I stayed for three nights at the St. George around Thanksgiving 1963, in connection with the West Point Glee Club's appearances on the Bell Telephone Hour, recorded in Brooklyn. Fell in lust with the studio receptionist and wound up spending the weekend in that borough. My Thanksgiving dinner (I'm a Californian, and could not get home that year) was a pastrami on rye and a Rheingold in a nearby diner, perhaps the one already mentioned. What I most remember about the St. George, aside from that aroma that only an old NYC hotel can have imbued in its carpets and furnishings, was the notice in the bathroom to electric shaver users that the hotel current was DC, not AC. I guess Edison's plan for a DC generator plant on every street corner died later in Brooklyn than elsewhere in the Big Apple.

This essay about the Hotel St. George pool appeared in the anthology "Brooklyn Was Mine," in slightly different form, but the gist is the same:

http://www.mrbellersneighborhood.com/story.php?storyid=2128

I do believe your old burger joint is still in business, now called Clark's Diner, on the corner of Clark and Henry Streets. (I highly recommend their scallion and feta cheese omelette.)

And the stable was torn down for a liquor store several decades ago, so hurray for progress.

Wish more of the building on the right was in the photo!

[Alas. But you can check out Clark Street today. The building below with the overhang is the flagpole building in the main photo. - Dave]

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Wow! I see why the pool made an impression on so many of the posters here. Kid paradise. Thanks for putting up the postcard.

I love the line about "crystal clear pure natural artesian salt water." I could easily see something advertised as such now, only now it would also include something about "age-defying" and also the word "organic" for good measure.

Amended: I still think the description is pretty overblown and funny. However, I misread "artesian" as "artisan." Then I looked up "artesian" and found out what it was. While it makes the description less funny, finding out that it actually was an apt description for the pool makes the pool even cooler in my book. (Not sure that I'd want to swim in water that had been hanging out under NYC, however. Or how such water could accurately be called "crystal clear" or "pure." Surely no worse than your average ocean, I suppose.)

Linen postcard. Click to enlarge.

THE ST. GEORGE SWIMMING POOL, located in the Hotel St. George, Clark St., Brooklyn, the largest in New York (120' x 40'), was constructed at a cost of $1,263,000. Crystal clear pure natural artesian salt water is used. Swim and gym suits, showers, steam rooms, battery of sun lamps, and air-conditioned gymnasium are included in the admission charge! 4 minutes from Wall St., 15 from Times Sq.; Clark St. Station of 7th Ave. I.R.T. Subway in hotel.

I only had a quick peek at it in 1954. The main reason that my parents and I were there was because my father had stayed at the St. George in August 1951 on his way to England on the USNS Gen. Maurice Rose. Click here for an account of our stay.

More about the hotel and the swimming pool here, and on the 1995 fire here.

Can you scan your postcard showing a view of the pool and put it up here at Shorpy? In 1961 I was living on West 12th Street in Manhattan as a fledgling employee of Union Carbide, and went by subway over to the Saint George in Brooklyn to swim in that great pool. My other visits to Brooklyn back then were to the Cypress Hills Cemetery to visit the graves of my paternal Wilson grandparents who lived on Madison Street in Bed-Stuy at the turn of the 20th Century. I had commissioned a stonecarver to complete a gravestone inscription for my grandmother. In that effort, I got the birth and death years and month correct for her, but missed the days of the month in each case by a few.

I remember staying there for one night in the early 1950's with my family. My only recollection is of the swimming pool.

I've never heard of a salt-water swimming pool ... was that common in the past?

[Lots of hotels, resorts and even private homes have saltwater swimming pools. - Dave]

Back in 1962, I was a student at the RCA Institutes in lower Manhattan. I worked at the GE building at 570 Lexington Avenue, so I took the 7th Avenue IRT to the school after work. Boy, was I tired. One night I fell asleep and ended up going under the river. I woke, panicked and got off at the first stop in Brooklyn. It was the St. George Hotel. I was amazed that a hotel had its own subway stop, so to speak. Those were the days!

I remember going to the St George in the 1950s to swim. They had an enormous swimming pool in the basement. It was a coed attraction for young college kids and singles. It probably didn't cost more than a couple bucks for admission and suit rentals.

In 1954 I stayed with my parents at the Hotel St. George the night of July 30-31 after returning from two years in the UK as a USAF dependent. I might even have the room number in a crude diary from the time.

We sort of aborted our first full meal back in the U.S. in one of its dining rooms in favor of a walk down and across the street to the east to some burger joint to sit on stools at the counter!

I got a US Road Atlas from its lobby bookstore for the impending seven-day cross-country road trip to the SF Bay Area. I also got one those automated photos done in a booth there, but it's far too poor to even think about scanning.

One of the postcards obtained there (click image for details):

I've another one showing their famous 120-foot indoor salt-water swimming pool. It all certainly went into a fast decline by just a few decades later.