Hotel Statler Boston
Opened in 1927 on Park Square at the corner of Arlington Street and Providence Street, the Hotel Statler Boston — now operating as the Park Plaza Hotel — brought Ellsworth Statler’s progressive hotel philosophy to New England: every room with a bath, a radio, and running ice water; a building designed as much for commercial convenience as for architectural distinction.
At a glance
The Hotel Statler Boston stands at 64 Arlington Street on Park Square, facing the Public Garden across Arlington Street and occupying the east edge of the square that was once the southern terminus of Back Bay’s formal street grid. Completed in 1927 and designed by George B. Post & Sons — the architectural firm that designed most of Statler’s major properties — the building presents a restrained Classical facade of limestone and brick with large regularly-spaced windows and a relatively flat decorative program that anticipates the transition from Beaux-Arts to early Moderne hotel design. With approximately 1,200 rooms across its 18 stories, it was among the largest hotels in New England at its opening. It has operated as the Park Plaza Hotel since 1989.
Key facts
- Opened: 1927
- Address: 64 Arlington Street at Park Square, Back Bay, Boston, Massachusetts
- Architects: George B. Post & Sons
- Height: 18 stories
- Style: Classical / transitional early Moderne — limestone and brick facade, large window grids, restrained ornament
- Current name: Park Plaza Hotel (since 1989)
- Designation: National Register of Historic Places (Back Bay Architectural District)
History
Ellsworth Milton Statler was the most innovative hotel operator of the early twentieth century. His chain, which grew from the Hotel Statler in Buffalo (1907) through properties in Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis, and New York (the Pennsylvania Hotel, now Hotel Pennsylvania, 1919), pioneered the modern hotel amenity standard: a private bath in every room, telephones, free ice water on demand, a morning newspaper delivered to the door, and full-length mirrors. Statler’s design formula was worked out with the architectural firm of George B. Post & Sons and applied consistently across properties, producing hotels of functional clarity and moderate architectural ambition that prioritized guest comfort over visual spectacle.
The Boston Statler, completed in 1927, was among the last large Statler properties to open before Ellsworth Statler’s death in 1928. The building occupied the Park Square site, a location that connected the hotel to both the railroad passengers arriving at South Station (about ten minutes’ walk) and the business and theater districts of Boston’s emerging commercial center. The Park Square location also placed it directly across from the Public Garden, offering a park-facing address in the tradition of the grand European hotel. The building’s functional character and its 1927 date — right at the moment when the interwar hotel aesthetic was beginning to adopt the streamlined surfaces of early Deco — meant that it was neither a full Beaux-Arts statement nor a pure Deco composition, but a transitional building whose primary legacy was comfort and scale rather than stylistic statement.
Statler Hotels were acquired by Hilton Hotels Corporation in 1954, and the Boston property operated under the Statler Hilton name before eventually being rebranded as the Park Plaza Hotel in 1989 under Omni Hotels management. The hotel underwent significant renovation in the 1980s and again in the 2000s, and has been part of the Back Bay Architectural District on the National Register of Historic Places. The building continues to function as a large full-service hotel serving the convention, business travel, and leisure markets.
What you see
The Hotel Statler Boston’s Park Square facade is a pragmatic composition: limestone lower floors, brick upper floors, large rectangular windows organized in regular vertical bays, and a horizontal cornice above the 18th-floor roofline. The ornament is minimal — some classical detailing around the Arlington Street entrance, a slight emphasis at the building corners — without the elaborate Beaux-Arts program of an earlier generation or the geometric Art Deco ornament of contemporary 1927–1930 hotel buildings elsewhere in Boston and New York. The building’s visual weight comes from its mass and from the rhythm of its window bays rather than from any element of surface decoration.
From the Public Garden, looking east across Arlington Street, the hotel reads as a block-like presence at the edge of Back Bay — solid, urban, and relatively anonymous compared to the historic rowhouse streetwalls of Commonwealth Avenue and Newbury Street nearby. The hotel’s Park Square location is one of the few Boston sites where a large commercial building sits directly at the edge of a formal park space, and the relationship between the limestone lower floors and the tree line of the Garden gives the building a more civic presence than its utilitarian program might suggest.
Practical information
- Access: Active hotel; lobby open to guests and visitors. The Tea Room and cocktail bar at ground level are accessible to the public.
- Location advantage: The Public Garden is directly across Arlington Street; the Boston Common is three minutes’ walk northwest; Newbury Street shopping is two blocks north along Arlington
- Best view of building: From the Public Garden’s Arlington Street path, looking east; the hotel’s Park Square mass is visible between the trees of the Garden’s southern boundary
Getting there
Hotel Statler Boston / Park Plaza Hotel is at 64 Arlington Street on Park Square. The nearest MBTA Green Line station is Arlington (Green Line B/C/D/E trains), directly adjacent at the corner of Boylston Street and Arlington Street — about one minute’s walk from the hotel’s front entrance. From South Station (Red Line and commuter rail), take the Red Line one stop to Park Street, transfer to any Green Line train, and ride one stop to Arlington. From Logan Airport, take the Silver Line to South Station then follow the above. Copley Square (for the Boston Public Library and Trinity Church) is three blocks west along Boylston Street. The Theatre District is five minutes’ walk south on Tremont Street.
Nearby
- Boston Public Garden (1837) — directly across Arlington Street; America’s first public botanical garden, with the famous Swan Boats on the lagoon, the Make Way for Ducklings sculpture, and formal Victorian plantings; free entry year-round
- Arlington Street Church (1861) — the historic Unitarian church at the corner of Arlington Street and Boylston Street, one block south; an important example of mid-nineteenth century Boston ecclesiastical architecture in brownstone
- Newbury Street — Boston’s main shopping and gallery street, two blocks north along Arlington; eight blocks of boutiques, galleries, restaurants, and historic Back Bay rowhouses from the Public Garden to Massachusetts Avenue
- Boston Common — five minutes’ walk west; America’s oldest public park (1634), with the Frog Pond, the Soldiers and Sailors Monument (1877), and direct access to the Freedom Trail
Sources
- Berger, Molly W. Hotel Dreams: Luxury, Technology, and Urban Ambition in America, 1829–1929. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011.
- National Register of Historic Places, Back Bay Architectural District nomination, Massachusetts.
- Nasaw, David. The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst. Houghton Mifflin, 2000. (For Statler Hotels context.)
- Statler Hotels Company. Annual Reports, 1924–1928. Ellsworth Statler Foundation archives.
Find it on the map
See this place and what’s around it →📷 Diventa un fotografo di Cultural Heritage Online
Condividi le tue foto dei luoghi: restano pubblicate con la tua firma come autore. Più vengono viste, più ti fai conoscere — e presto un concorso premierà le foto più apprezzate.
Accedi o registrati gratis per aggiungere una foto