New York Palace Budapest, Historical palace hotel in District VII, Budapest, Hungary
The New York Palace is a four-story historicist building at Erzsébet körút 9–11, designed by Alajos Hauszmann with Flóris Korb and Kálmán Giergl. Its pale stone facade has rows of rectangular windows, some framed by columns, and a central tower with a clock face and spire, flanked by four smaller spires. Ground-level arches and canopies sit above the entrances.
The New York Life Insurance Company commissioned this building in 1891 based on architect Alajos Hauszmann's design. The structure was completed during a period when Budapest was developing into a modern European capital.
The ground floor cafe became a gathering place for Hungarian writers and artists in the early 1900s. Many of them sat here regularly to discuss their creative work.
The building is a working hotel; the New York Café on the ground floor is the part open to non-guests. The Blaha Lujza tér stop on tram lines 4 and 6 is the nearest public transport. The café reopened in 2006 after a reconstruction that restored its original splendour.
The building's first floor held the New York Life Insurance Company's Budapest offices, while the upper floors were rented to wealthy landowners. The ground-floor café opened two days after the building itself, on 23 October 1894. After the Second World War the café closed and the palace became the Lapkiadó publishing house, housing several newspaper editorial offices.
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