The Maritime Hotel on Ninth Ave and 16th St. began its life in the late 1960s as part of a complex of three buildings for the National Maritime Union of America (hence the nautical theme). What is now the Dream Hotel behind it and what became part of the former St. Vincent’s Hospital on 12th St. and 7th Ave are the other two.
When the union collapsed in the 1980s, the Maritime Building was sold to Covenant House. When that charity was rocked by scandal, the building was sold to the Chinese government for its nefarious purposes in 1994. In 2001 developers got their hands on it and converted it into the boutique hotel we see today