Dormitory of my dreams

In 1931, the Hotel St. George in Brooklyn Heights was the largest hotel in New York City... and somewhat posh. It used to boast the largest indoor salt-water pool in the US.

Then, the place went through a bit of a rough patch.

By the 1970's, the hotel was rife with addicts & bums, and boasted a strip club named "Wild Fyre" [sic] on the ground floor. Appropriately enough, the location was used to film the scene in The Godfather where Luca Brasi gets murdered.

(So, when the Corleone family gets the news that "Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes," he could very well have been in the hotel pool.)

And what of the St. George today? Well, a bit burned down, a bit went co-op, and the rest? Student housing, of course! With a subway stop directly beneath the building... and of course, as you can see in the picture, every college student's most important supplier located on the ground floor.

I can just imagine upstate parents' expressions as they pull up in front of the liquor store with their loaded minivans and wide-eyed teenagers. I wonder how many of them have simply turned their vehicles right around.