A Tale of Sloane House at W34th Street
On November 24, 1993, Real Estate Weekly had this news blurb: “The YMCA of Greater New York, Inc., has retained Sheldon Good & Company of Chicago and Edward S. Gordon Company, Inc. (ESG) to offer for sale the 14-story, 266,315 square-foot Sloane House YMCA branch al 356 West 34th Street, Manhattan, and an adjoining two-story former city YMCA headquarters building at 422 Ninth Avenue, it was announced.”
Sloane House, once the largest YMCA residence in the United States, was converted into a high-rise a few years later. Few people know the history of this building. It housed thousands, if not millions since it was opened on January 1st of 1930. It was a magnet of drawing young travelers from around the world visiting New York City. It witnessed many events and touched upon many people’s lives. I lived and worked in this building from 1988 to 1990. In these two years I have met many people and experienced many events that shaped my life in America. There were murder, attempted murder, rape, robberies, suicide, betrayal, sex and drugs in the building. It was a reflection of New York City; it was a part of history of New York City. It now quietly stands in the shadow of a few modern high rises around her...
posted by HeZuobin @ 9:04 PM
89 Comments:
I lived at Sloane House from 1985-1989 as a student of the School of Visual Arts. You might say I had the most fun in my life there, despite the very small rooms. That's because you were young,in Manhattan and hanging out with some of the most creative people around.
SVA students had run of the 8th through 10th floors those years. Much of what you said happened, happened including a friend's suicide.
My first experience at Sloan House was in the summer of 1981. I was meeting friends from Germany who had visited me in Tennessee and were on their way back to Germany. My plan was to stay for a few days and see them off on their trip home. As the days passed for my German friends and they were back in the fatherland my magic carpet ride began. What was to be a few days turned into a couple of months. I began to meet people from all over the world and made friends that are still in contact with me after all these years. As I toured Europe I had the wonderful fortune to visit some of these people in there homes in Europe. This began an international exchange in my hometown as well as in Europe and Asia.Over the years up until 1989 (I moved to Germany for seven years) I always stayed at Sloane House where I continued to make foreign friends. I made at least two or three trips to New York City each year thereafter and finally moved to Europe for seven years. I believe that this wonderful experience for me mostly due to the Sloane House YMCA would not have happened if there had not been this great hostel. I am saddened by the news that it has closed and will say that I hope for some miracle to reopen the hostel because with all its sometime weird events it still would be the best place in all of New York City. It was the meeting place for all the world. And having traveled and lived in more than sixty countries since my first stay at Sloane House I still would love to come to New York City and book a room at 34th street in the The Sloane House Y.M.C.A. There are too many stories to tell about the people, places, and things that came from my days at Sloane House I will never forget these wonderful people and how they touched my life, and I can only end this on a note by saying I wish for anyone traveling that they find just a fraction of what Sloane House and the adventure I found there had to offer. Again with SAD feelings I do hope that somehow the hostel reopens even though I know it may never happen..
If by chance anyone reads my comments and remembers me I welcome and hope for renewed contact with you.
Randy,
Let's connect. My email is zuobinpeterhe.1234@yahoo.com
All the best
Hi scanman,
In the early 1950s my father would often rent a room at the Sloan House and I would stay with him over a weekend. He was a long term TB patient at Seton Hospital (also closed down) in the Bronx in the days just before the miracle of antibiotics. I was at the Leake and Watts Children's Home in Yonkers for 6 years (1948-1954), My 2 sisters and I would take the bus and subway down to the YMCA. I remember trying really hard to figure out what YMCA stood for and put together "Yonkers Merchants Calling America" when I was about 9or 10 years old. The Sloan House has some warm memories for me because I got to see my Dad once in a while.
I stayed at Sloane House in November 1987. I stayed on the 9th floor. I remember the corridors were full of students all night playing guitars, smoking, drinking and laughing. Really great atmosphere... It was my first trip to the States and was memorable because of my stay at Sloane House..
I was there In Oct 59 to Feb 1960.
It was affordable and central. It served that period of my life very well.
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I was there in the fall of 1968.
A 18 yr. old from the suburbs of southern Cal. My first question:
I'm the only heterosexual here?
The answer: Probably! A bit unnerving at first. Soon people came forward, instructed me on the dos and dont's of life there as well as how to navigate NYC. I still have a towel from there.
Yes, a lot of gay guys there. I was hit on every time I used the communal showers on my floor. Was kind of flattering and all you had to do was say, no, thank you. Mid-60s...wonderful place to stay. I'm sorry it's going out of business.
I lived in Sloan 1966-8. As long as I baracaded my door at night, and avoided the showers, things were fine. It seemed there were more keys to my door than just mine. I remember playing ping pong and pool, and the dances in the dance room. Hot summer nights, good friends, and getting my things out of hock each week from the pawn shop just down the street..I lived through it, some didn't...
Am watching alcatraz, am wondering who's rooms are bigger. Maybe ours, but only by a closet...
I lived their for two years but only slept their year 1957 far too many gays
I lived their for two years but only slept their year 1957 far too many gays
Did anyone know that the Sloan House was sometimes called "The French Toilet"? If you used the public showers you could maybe find a "friend". It could be very unplesant. Still,your room seemed safe and if you didn't have much money you could live there cheap. Later, I found the Chealsea Hotel. It was more pleasant. No one tried to fuck around unless you wanted to, and the residents were more intelligent, artistic, if not eccentric.
In the winter of 1983 I had just graduated from law school, and visiting New York for the first time with little money. I paid for a room at Sloane House and one night as I entered the lobby I was stopped by a Finnish girl who told me in broken English with tears in her eyes that she had lost all her money and needed a place to stay for the night until she could make contact with relatives. It was a freezing cold night in January. I decided I could spare the $22 for a room for her plus $5 key deposit. Not willing to just hand her the money in case she intended to use it for drugs, I walked with her to the reception counter paid for a room for her and asked for a room on my floor (a mixed floor) and walked with her to her room and told her my own room number. An hour later she knocked on my door, to thank me, she said, and I invited her in. Being alone in New York I really needed the company myself and the rest was the most unforgettable night of my life. An old lady collected her in the morning, and as the girl handed in her key to the reception and collected the $5 key deposit, she offered it to me, but I thought she might need a $5 note in her pocket, more than I did. I never kept her contact details and I remember only her first name Tuula. She was 19 at the time. That is my Sloane House memory.
I lived at the Sloane House from Oct. 1982 to February 1983. I had just moved from California. There were some interesting moments while I lived there, most of them were amusing. I was living there using a friend's name. He was a student at NYU and was moving into a dorm. He said I should use his name to get the student rate. It was great, until they decided they wanted to issue picture ID's. I decided I did not want an ID with my picture and my friend's name, in case he did something that would have the authorities searching for him. I began looking for other places, and one of the first I checked out was the Hotel Vigilante on 9th Ave around 28th St. This was a "Flop House", it had plywood kennels with chicken wire ceilings and a padlock on the door. I looked else where, and wound up at the Times Square Motor Hotel on 43rd St and 8th Ave. The Sloane House was my first home in New York, and I think about it with a fond memory.
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I stayed at Sloane House in October '91.
Fresh off the plane from England, New York was the starting point of my American adventure and looking back Sloane House was a perfect place to start.
Experiencing cockroaches for the first time, learning when and when not to use the facilities, and having a most extremely humorous conversation with a 'dwarf' pimp when stood on the sidewalk one evening all added to the experience.
Although only a brief stay after all these years the memory of Sloane House still brings a smile!
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I had been in YMCA, Sloan House, in
1952 on my way from Rolla,Missouri to Picatinny Arsenal,NJ. I was then a student working for doctorate degree
at Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy. I received the degree in
1953. By the way, I was a student from INDIA and had been in USA since
1946.
P. G. Sheth
I lived in the Sloane House YMCA 1981-1982, and I have the best memories on that time. Indeed, students of the dance schools dancing in the hallways, and the fashionschool students and drama students performing and showing their lastest creations. I was never lonely in the Ymca, made some really good friends. Anyone remember mr Purch? And Rudolph, and Herb, the opera singer? Best regards to all.
I stayed at the Sloane House many times on weekends while in graduate school in Philadelphia in the late 1960's, early 1970's. I am gay and, as an 24-year old from Kansas City, nights at the Sloane House were the times of my life. Thank goodness this was all pre-AIDS. I remember the central court. I always liked a room that faced onto it. Guys would lounge in their rooms (windows), half naked and I would spot them (let's see one, two, three floors below) and get on the elevator and ride down to their floor and cruise their hallway. Those darkish brown tile showers are unfrogettable. We would leave our doors open a crack if we were interested in "being visited." What a time I had there. The price was right. The sex was good. And what would I do without these memories of a bygone, more innocent, and safe time when you could have sex with anonymous guys and live to write about it?
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Stayed there in 1988. Can't beat $15.00 per night in NYC!
I worked there summer of 1969 as editor of a groundbreaking urban affairs campus newspaper, Encounter, sponsored by the Y for free citywide distribution.
I was at Sloan House from 1988-1989 as a student at the School of Visual Arts. I was unable to return for a second year, but I remember my time there very well. It was a great time with the new friends I made at SVA, but also a sad time where I went through some depression. I often have dreams that I've returned to SVA and Sloan House and am completing my studies there. I suppose the fact that I never finished what I started has sort of haunted me all these years. I still have many videos that I made in Sloan House for SVA.
Lived there as an SVA student in 1982-84. 9th floor, right by the elevators. Prositutes, Veterans, never knew who was walking in to the elevator. To be an Art Student in NYC at that time! New York was crazy! Greatest memories!
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I stayed at the William Sloane YMCA a couple of times in the summer of 1966 when I was in the Navy and would go to NYC on weekends. Don't remember much except that the building was big, the rooms small and it was kind of scary. That was 53 years ago and I just now looked it up on the internet and found out where it was located. Brings back memories.
1988, 20 years old, first time out of New Zealand... Sloane House was perfect after 3 longs weeks at sea, except in May the nights were hot and humid, and I missed being rocked to sleep in my bunk.
I met a gentleman from São Paulo who was staying on the 12th floor, and we were going out to a bar that evening. I figured I’d walk down the 2 flights of stairs from the 14th, rather than use the elevator, to meet him... only Sloane had no 13th floor!
I only stayed two nights, but I’ll never forget it and the characters. So sad to hear it was gone within a couple of years.
My favorite time there in Sloane house began 1958 to 1959
on special nights we had a dance and it was perfect to meet girls who would come from the USO club in the next room. on the second floor.
They were told not to come into the other room but heck who cared. i had many a date with girls from all over the country.
my really perfect time there was when i had met a tennis professional. we talked for many hours at a time. he was a great friend.
i also enjoyed the gym and swimming pool.
To eat in the cafe. was a good way to relax. as long as you didn't stay to long. Sad to see it closed sure would have gone back if it was still open the best time ever spent there.
I wont leave my name or email because i am well over six thousand miles away so i cant meet anyone who would like to chat especialy ones who live still in New York City.
A few daysbefore New Years eve 1965 to 1966 I arrived and was welcomed in the friendly Sloan House and stayed til January 6th 1966. Met many people and made frends, both boys and girls. The cost of staying there was 2,80$/night for a single room, an affordable price at that time I was jobless and living on borrowed money. I do remember a sweet girl named Sherryl from Scranton Pennsylvania. We came very close to each other emotionally and met again a couple of years later in Athens Greece. I hope she is doing fine now in the age of 77 years.
Tolly
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