Orient-Express Comes to Manhattan: Hotel Planned for Donnell Branch of New York Public Library

Pretty soon you'll be able to book a posh room at the New York Public Library. Orient-Express, that esteemed hospitality group of luxury trains, cruises, and hotels, has purchased the Donnell Branch in Midtown for $59 million. This means big-time renovations for the building, which desperately needs them. The five-storey building on W. 53rd Street will be razed. In its place will sprout the 150-room luxury hotel with a new, state-of-the-art library on the first floor. The spa-hotel will connect to the existing '21' Club, the famed restaurant/bar (the most celebrated of speakeasies during the Prohibition Era), already owned by Orient-Express. Orient-Express plans to market the new hotel with the '21' brand name. In 2001, let the luxury begin.

Photo Via Telegraph UK