The Empire Hotel
The grand staircase of the abandoned Empire Hotel is about to collapse into the basement.
Updated October 27, 2019 | By Matthew Christopher
The town of Sharon Springs, NY in which the Empire Hotel was built was known for its “healing waters” even before the Revolutionary War. The area’s mineral springs drew many visitors over the years and by the late 19th century it had become a fashionable spa that attracted such notables as the Vanderbilts, the Macys, Ulysses S. Grant, Charles Dickens, and Oscar Wilde. Hotels, bath houses, cottages, boarding houses, and pavilions were built in styles including Beaux Arts, Mission Style, Gothic Revival, Colonial Revival, Greek Revival, and Renaissance Revival; Italianate and Queen Anne were the most popular. The town began falling out of favor with its wealthy clientele by the early 1900s, however, partly because another nearby town’s racetracks and casinos eclipsed the waning popularity of drinking and bathing in mineral water.
The town found a limited resurgence of popularity with a Jewish clientele, who were barred from many other resorts. A synagogue was built and several kosher hotels were added, including the Empire Hotel. Little historical information on this specific building is available; the town historical society says it was built in 1927 as a Jewish summer school, however I’ve found an ad for it in a 1923 newspaper. For the town, maintaining the status of a resort destination became increasingly difficult; Prohibition damaged the area’s hops industry, and during the depression the town’s rail service was discontinued. While the post-World War II years saw a small increase in popularity due to the reparations paid to Holocaust survivors by the German government, the overall decline continued.
The 1980s saw the closure of many hotels and boardinghouses, and in the years that followed many were demolished or burned. Several attempts were made to resuscitate the town as a resort destination, with mixed success. By the turn of the 21st century many of the hotels were gone or abandoned, but a few remained open. When several large properties were purchased by a development group, it was hoped that their vision for the town would revitalize the area, but none of the plans were enacted and the company’s holdings there continued to suffer from neglect and vandalism. By 2013 the developer had received new loans and separated the project from investors he claimed were holding it back, and stated that progress would begin soon. Aside from demolition of one of the former hotels, as of 2019 there's little evidence of change.
Detail of the frayed carpet on the staircase on one of the upper floors
The Empire Hotel was badly deteriorated when I photographed it. The staircase had listed to the right and the slant was noticeable and unsettling when ascending it. The front porch was gone and the property was overgrown with trees and weeds. The lobby floor was rippled and gave a sense that it could collapse at any time, and many of the hallways in the upper floors had begun to sag. The ornamental pressed-tin ceilings hung in tatters and the carpet was threadbare. Nevertheless, many of the vacationers’ personal items remained: a wheelchair in the hallway, a book of prayers, a blue dress still hanging on the wall. As with many popular resort destinations, the fall from favor had come at a high cost. Slowly but surely the remaining bits of its identity were stripped away by exposure to the elements.
In August 2019 the Empire Hotel finally collapsed on itself after years of neglect. At the time the story of the Empire Hotel collapse broke the town was attempting to locate the owner and planned to force him to pay for the remaining clean-up, a cost estimated to be $100,000. For now, its remains lie in a jumble of broken boards and weeds, its past fading into nothingness as those who stayed there take their memories of it to the grave.
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