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The Prince George, a 14-story structure originally completed in 1904 and expanded in 1912, was built by real estate developer Charles Rogers, son of noted sculptor John Rogers. Mr. Rogers commissioned New York City architect Howard Greenly to design the building and decorate the interior, even though the original plans for the hotel were drawn in 1903 by A.N. Allen. Mr. Greenly was a prominent figure in the architectural world, having trained initially in the office of Carrere & Hastings and then at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

Mr. Greenly created a Beaux-Arts style for the exterior of the hotel with features such as a rusticated limestone base with red brick and white terra cotta trim above, as well as three-dimensional sculptural ornaments. The hotel was also noted for its public rooms. The English-inspired reception lounge, which at that time included the current ballroom space, with its oak paneling and enormous fireplace mantel, was considered the largest hotel lobby in New York in its day. The French-inspired corridor on the first level led in turn to the equal Franco influenced Ladies Tea Room, complete with trellised piers and arches, a Rook wood faience fountain, lighting set within opalescent glass cartouches and murals by George Inness Jr., son of the famous landscape painter George Inness, Sr.

The Prince George was designed as an elegant hotel for middle-income tourists. For decades, the Hotel and its restaurants were favorite gathering places in the Madison Square Neighborhood. Yet in the mid-1980’s, faced with unprecedented homelessness among families, the City of New York began using The Prince George and other older midtown hotels as emergency shelters. At its worst, The Prince George was home to over 1,600 homeless women and children, without adequate services or security. The building declined into Dickensian horror, damaging the families themselves and the surrounding community.

After standing vacant for many years once families were relocated to appropriate housing, Common Ground Community purchased The Prince George in 1996 and began an extensive rehabilitation to transform the landmark into permanent housing with services for 416 formerly homeless and low-income single adults. The building re-opened in October 1999, and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.