Washington Square Hotel’s famous guests

Lobby © Washington Square Hotel

The hotel had already counted Ernest Hemingway and Dylan Thomas among its guests, and musicians and writers – especially those of the stuggling variety – continued to make the Hotel Earle their temporary home during this time, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Jack Elliott and Peter LaFarge, with Baez even referring to it as “that crummy hotel over Washington Square” in her 1975 song Diamonds and Rust.
Salvation, as far as the hotel was concerned, came in 1973 when it was bought by the Paul family, who have remained its owners ever since. Over the next few decades, the building was gradually and sensitively restored to the stylish art deco-inspired hotel that it is today, with its name changing to Washington Square in 1986. North Square, the hotel’s award winning bistro-style restaurant was opened in 1992.