Apparently the hotel has either changed hands many times, OR, the owner found it difficult to make a positive, final decision on what it should be named. Actually it has changed hands at least as many times as it has changed names. The most recent name change, to
The Otis, came about in 1956. More recently the hotel, built in 1911, was converted to low income apartments. It was bought by an investment group in 2007, closed, and became a refuge for the homeless, being vandalized and filled with garbage.
Bankruptcies and legal battles have halted progress on revitalization for years but, as of 2016, it appears that the building may soon be sold to new investors and renovated into either upscale apartments or a boutique hotel.
Architecturally, the building is rather pedestrian, having been built of red brick like the majority of its neighbors but without much in the way of decoration. The five story building is a simple rectangle with rectangular windows, string courses on the lower floor and brick quoins on the corners. The cornice is large and overhanging, with simple, straight sided modillions on its underside.
Otis Hotel
Date Built: 1911 - Architects: Cowley and Rigg
The first floor of the West 1st Avenue elevation of this large five-story brick SRO is clad in new, novelty brickwork with new large show windows. The entrance features a broken pediment built of wood. The Madison Street first floor elevation still exhibits the original rusticated brick. A large decorative marquis over the entrance was probably added later. Two belt courses articulate the three vertical sections of the building: the retail first floor, three stories of hotel rooms and a top story with classical cornice and parapet above. Each section of the stories above the first floor is separated into three bays by decorative brickwork, which resembles quoining. Most upper story windows are regular, recessed, double-hung one-over-one sashes. There are brick quoins on the corners of the building.
From the NRHP Nomination Form