Buy “Anything From a 50-cent Spoon to a $300,000 Chandelier” at the Hudson Hotel Liquidation Sale

No need to truck it out to Jersey for a yard sale – there’s a massive liquidation of furniture, decor and memorabilia happening now at the former Hudson Hotel in Hell’s Kitchen. 

Featuring everything from one of the 800 guest room clothes hangers (priced at $.50) to the lobby’s iconic Ingo Maurer-designed chandelier (priced at $300,000) as well as artwork and decor from throughout the hotel, eager thrifters can browse the sale for a $5 entrance fee from 10am to 5pm Monday through Saturday and 12pm to 5pm on Sundays at W58th Street and 9th Avenue.

The liquidation sale opened this weekend and will run until all items are sold at the historic West Side hotel with nearly a cat’s nine lives – first a women’s residence founded by JP Morgan heiress Anne Morgan, turned hotel for Dutch soldiers in World War II, turned WNET public television and Daily Show studio, turned Ian Schrager hotel turned healthcare housing in the pandemic. Now, the building has been sold to developers CSC Coliving to be refashioned into affordable shared housing and is cleaning out its proverbial (and literal) closets. 

Heading up the sale is Dayton, Ohio-based company International Content Liquidations Inc, a five-generation, family-run business founded in 1890 specializing in hotel and resort liquidation sales across the country. Nicole L Kabealo, the fifth generation of the firm and its Project Manager told W42ST that despite the volume, ICL was used to supervising sales as massive as the one at the Hudson, having last year presided over the liquidation of Midtown’s historic Pennsylvania Hotel’s 2,200 guest room and common area furniture as well as past sales at The St Regis and Commodore hotels – and though they’ve recently traveled as far as Montana, “Our company and our staff is definitely tuned into New York,” said Kabealo. 

As for the Hudson, the team at ICL moved every item — from flat screen TVs to end tables to commercial kitchen equipment to the lower level nightclub’s furniture — to the lobby level for easy browsing and buying. Kabealo mentioned that while the company provides carts and dollies for shoppers to pick up a couch here and a commercial oven there, customers are responsible for getting the items out the door and to their own walk-up apartments. “You have to provide your own muscle,” she laughed. 

Some of her favorite sale items include the aforementioned lobby chandelier as well as the hotel’s hand-carved pool table with matching dome light (also designed by Ingo Maurer). “You can find anything from a $.50 cent spoon to a $300,000 chandelier,” said Kabealo of the market’s wide range of items. All sales are final — with no refunds, returns or exchanges — and there is a 15% buyer’s premium and 8.88% tax added to every purchase.

The best part of her job, she said, is working with customers looking to secure memorabilia from their time at the hotel. “We have a lot of people that come in and say, ‘Oh my God, I got married here,’ or ‘I stayed in this room – can I buy the room number off the door?’ People do come in looking for specific memento-style items,” she said. “But we also get customers that come in and they have no idea what they want. And then, we see them in line and they’re leaving with four carts of different merchandise!” she added. 

While the group’s next New York sale is still up in the air — “We travel so much, I’m barely home three months out of the year!” said Kabealo — for now, they’re happy to help New Yorkers take home a piece of West Side history. Happy shopping! 

The Hudson Hotel — Before and After…