The history of the Fulton Ferry Hotel is deeply integrated into the history of South Street Seaport.  From the outset of the seaport as a commercial and transportation hub, hotels and lodgings existed at and around the seaport.  When the Fulton ferry began operating in 1816, small “steamboat hotels” opened on the site of the original Fulton Fish market, across from Schermerhorn Row.  In early 1821, a large fire destroyed much of these small hotels.  When the Fulton Fish Market opened for in 1822, hotels and boarding houses sprang up all along the seaport.

   The increase in the size and scope of South Street as a major commercial hub in the nineteenth century led to larger hotels of the region.  The Fulton Ferry Hotel opened in 1897, comprised the buildings located 92 and 93 South Street, as well as 4 and 6 Fulton and 173 John Street.  Part of Schermerhorn Row built in 1811; these buildings were expanded from four floors to six to accommodate the new hotel. 

   Early descriptions of the day describe large “saloons” on the first and second floors decorated in expensive art and fitted with the finest furnishings.  On the first floor was Sweets Restaurant, a South Street staple from 1847 through 1992. The third, fourth and fifth floors contained the guest rooms, which were highly regarded in their day for their size and comfort.  For perspective in comparing a hotel of the nineteenth century with that of the twenty-first with wireless internet and flat screen plasma televisions in every room, examine a typical room at the Fulton Ferry Hotel.  Hotel rooms 100 square feet or less, they lacked heat, many lacked windows, and only one bathroom and sink per floor were available for guests.

   At the outset, the hotel attracted the most distinguished sea captains and merchants, drawn by the hotels beauty and proximity to the waterfront.  By the early twentieth century, business declined on the East River in favor of the Hudson River.  As a result, the hotel fell into decline and turned more into a boarding house for local sailors, longshoreman, and tradesman than a first class hotel.  More mates, oilers, pilots, engineers, and stewards called the hotel home than distinguished captains.  By the end of 1930’s, the Fulton Ferry Hotel, by then firmly entrenched in its reputation as a boarding house, had closed.

   The hotel was immortalized in the 1950’s. The late Joseph Mitchell, in his New Yorker article “Up in the old hotel,” wrote about the owner of Sloppy Louie’s restaurant, another famous South Street institution.  The article was a collection of lesser known stories about the hotel and Seaport’s heyday.  The article was reprinted in 1992.  Thanks to the South Street Seaport Museum, the hotel is largely preserved and lives on.  Plans are underway to restore several guest rooms and incorporate them into the Museum’s “World Port of New York” exhibit.