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The Hotel Manger (pronounced Mang-er as in hangar), renamed the Hotel Madison in 1959, was a hotel in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, which operated from 1930 to 1976. It was attached to North Station and the Boston Garden. In 1983, the building was demolished to make way for the Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. Federal Building.
The hotel was formally opened on September 27, 1930. The reception was attended by over 200 guests, including Mayor James Michael Curley, Secretary of the Commonwealth Frederic W. Cook, and U.S. Representative John McCormack. Former Boston fire commissioner Theodore A. Glynn was the toastmaster for the event.
From 1934 to 1936, radio station WMEX had its studio in the Hotel Manger.
On July 29, 1932, the Boston Police Department arrested 26 men they believed were involved in the Numbers game. 25 of the 26 men were also charged with suspicion of knowledge of murder. On March 13, 1935, the body of Sturgis H. Hunt, a Quincy, Massachusetts political figure who was a "missing witness" in the removal proceedings against Mayor Charles A. Ross, was found by a chambermaid. Hunt had committed suicide by drinking poison.
On April 5, 1947, at the Boston Bruins annual breakup party, Bill Cowley unexpectedly announced he was leaving hockey because general manager Art Ross left him off of the roster for a post-season exhibition tour of Western Canada and the United States (Cowley's wife was from Vancouver and he wanted to use the trip as a honeymoon). At the time of his retirement, Cowley was the NHL's all-time leading point scorer. On May 14, 1970, Bruins head coach Harry Sinden held a press conference at the hotel to announce he was leaving hockey to enter private business. His announcement came four days after the Bruins defeated the St. Louis Blues in the 1970 Stanley Cup Finals.
On October 25, 1949, the body of Leon G. Whittemore, head of a local chemical company, was found in a third-floor restroom. The medical examiner ruled that Whittemore's death was a suicide by poisoning. On April 1, 1950, the literary scholar F. O. Matthiessen committed suicide by jumping out of a 12th floor window.
On October 21, 1951, groundwork on the Central Artery resulted in the hotel losing its steam supply. The hotel used a steam locomotive to heat the hotel until service was restored. On September 19, 1953, boxing trainer and manager Ray Arcel was critically injured in front of the hotel when he was hit from behind by an assailant wielding a lead pipe. The attack was a warning from the mob, who did not want Arcel to organize a competing television broadcast. The attack was never solved and Arcel remained out of boxing until 1972, when he came out of retirement to train Roberto Durán.
On September 12, 1964, The Beatles stayed at the hotel and held a press conference there.
In July 1963, B&M sold the hotel, the North Station Industrial Building, and about 17 acres of land behind North Station to Linnell & Cox. Linnell & Cox soon sold the hotel to Dison Corp. for a reported $2 million amid threats that the city would take over the property because of tax defaults.
In March 1983, the Boston Redevelopment Authority purchased the hotel from the MSL Reality Trust for $2.2 million. On May 15, 1983, the hotel was demolished by explosives. An estimated 26,000 people observed the implosion, which was also televised live by WNEV. The hotel was demolished in order to make way for the construction of the Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. Federal Building.
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