The Blue Moon Hotel, an 1879 Tenement-Turned Neighborhood Icon

A visit to Orchard Street is incomplete without the newsworthy story of how the soul of a 5-story tenement filled with artifacts and personal effects became a stately 8-story hotel. Only a visit to the Blue Moon can make one really understand how art and history have collided into such an elegant design. It is a memorial to a simpler time.

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A time when the proliferation of symbols indicated family and community to be the center of our lives. A period which fostered a love for artisans and craftwork. Objects of beauty required symmetry and technical ability People were mindful of the culture; how they dressed and lived mattered.

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Blue Moon reflects a time when a profession was a calling and work was made by the pride of one's hands. Artisans worked with desire, vision, and the inspiration to create beauty and form as well as function. There was communion in their contemplative productions, in that all that one touched was crafted by another human being.

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The elaborate historic preservation of the Blue Moon remains functional and modern, while at the same time every original architectural and ornamental detail that was salvageable, such as banisters, wainscoting, mosaics, wrought iron, doors and hardware, have been restored or where necessary, recreated.

The essence of the Blue Moon project was to transmit a sensibility from an earlier time when people identified with the value of their work and felt a greater connection with worldly relationships. A reminder of a code of behavior when not just the artist was more sensitive but society’s protocol as well.

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The Blue Moon Hotel is located at 100 Orchard Street, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, and can be reached by calling 646-787-5503, emailing [email protected], or going to their website,?bluemoon-nyc.com.