National Maritime Union of America

Category: Seafarer Services

Current use: Hotel
Historic Use: Maritime Union Headquarters
Built: 1966
Architect: Albert C. Ledner

Designation:

Description: The 12-story white-tile building with porthole windows was built for the sailors' union. Once the union's main building, originally called the Joseph Curran Annex (346 W 17th) and Curran Plaza (199 9th Ave.), after the union's founding president. The front walls slope at 8.5 degrees to meet zoning requirements that the structure have a 20-foot setback above 85 feet. In 1987, the City wanted to condemn the structure to make the building a prison, but was outbid Covenant House, who used the building as a shelter for runaway teens. It was sold to New York Service Center for Chinese Study Fellows in 1996 and was purchased in 2001 and converted to the Maritime Hotel.

Between 1954 and 1967 Albert C. Ledner, AIA, designed 14 projects for the National Maritime Union. Four were built in New York; all are expressive mid-century modern. In 2003 the dormitory building was reborn as the signature Maritime Hotel.(Source: Historic District Council)

The National Maritime Union (NMU) was an American labor union founded in May 1937. It affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in July 1937. After a failed merger in 1988, the union merged with the Seafarers International Union of North America in 2001. (Wikipedia)