The 1924 George B. Post-designed grand hotel — restored and reopened as Marriott Syracuse Downtown in 2016 — with long-running staff stories of a male apparition in Room 517 and a recurring lady-in-blue figure.
100 East Onondaga Street, Syracuse, NY 13202
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$
Standard Marriott rates apply; restaurants and lobby are open to non-guests during posted hours.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Fully restored historic hotel with modern accessibility upgrades
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1924 · 1920s Grand Hotel Architecture · George B. Post & Sons Design · Historic Hotels of America · Major 2016 Restoration
Construction on the Hotel Syracuse began in 1922 and the building opened to the public on August 16, 1924. Designed by William Stone Post of the prominent New York firm George B. Post & Sons — the firm responsible for the New York Stock Exchange Building, Williamsburgh Savings Bank Building, and Cornelius Vanderbilt's Fifth Avenue chateau — the hotel was Syracuse's flagship grand hotel, with more than 600 guest rooms, an elegant Grand Ballroom, the Persian Terrace, and rooftop tennis, squash, and handball courts.
In its first half-century the hotel hosted Charles Lindbergh (who appeared in 1927 to discuss his trans-Atlantic flight), Elvis Presley, President John F. Kennedy, and John Lennon. In 1980 the hotel was rebranded as the Hilton at Syracuse Square and underwent expansion with a new tower designed by William B. Tabler — the Hilton tower that adjoins the original Hotel Syracuse structure.
The combined property struggled financially through the 1990s and eventually closed in 2004. The building sat largely vacant for over a decade. In 2014, developer Ed Riley acquired the hotel through a public-private partnership, and Boston-based Pyramid Hotel Group later joined the ownership group. Beginning in 2015, a $57 million restoration project — led by architect Bruce King — reduced the property to 261 guest rooms while returning the public spaces (lobby, Persian Terrace, Grand Ballroom) to their original 1924 appearance.
The restored hotel reopened on August 19, 2016, as the Marriott Syracuse Downtown. The property was inducted into Historic Hotels of America the same year and remains the largest historic hotel in Central New York. The restoration is recognized as one of the more ambitious adaptive-reuse projects in upstate New York and is featured in National Trust for Historic Preservation case studies.
Sources
The Marriott Syracuse Downtown's paranormal lore predates the 2016 restoration and traces primarily to the National Paranormal Society's profile of the building, along with paranormal-investigator and haunted-database listings. Tier-1 newspaper coverage of the hauntings themselves is thin, but several of the underlying historical events the lore references are verifiable in newspaper archives.
The most repeated story involves Room 517. A psychic who visited the hotel decades ago reportedly identified the room as occupied by a male spirit, and subsequent staff accounts have continued to associate the room with disturbances — phones ringing when the room is empty, lights and electronics behaving unpredictably, and a sensation of being watched. A separate apparition, described as a 'lady in a blue dress covered in blood,' is reported moving through corridors on multiple floors. Other phenomena — doors that lock and unlock on their own, footsteps in empty halls, the sense of being followed — are reported on lower and basement levels.
Some paranormal-society retellings connect the Room 517 activity to a tragic accident on New Year's Eve 1984 (reported in The New York Times on January 2, 1984), in which a 31-year-old man fell down a 100-foot elevator shaft at the then-Hilton tower of the hotel after two men pried open the doors of a stalled elevator and helped others step out onto the 10th floor. The fall was accidental — the result of attempted self-rescue from a stuck elevator — and the man died on impact. The lore connecting this incident to Room 517 is not directly evidenced; it is a folkloric overlay that paranormal coverage has placed on a real, verifiable tragedy.
The restoration and reopening as Marriott Syracuse Downtown in 2016 did not, according to the hotel's lore, displace the activity. Staff continue to share Room 517 stories quietly with interested guests, and the hotel does not market itself as a haunted destination — the lore lives in staff oral tradition and regional paranormal coverage rather than in official hotel programming.
Notable Entities
Book a room in the fully restored 1924 grand hotel. Among the 261 guest rooms is Room 517 — the room most frequently named in the hotel's paranormal lore, originally identified by a psychic decades ago. Guests interested in the building's history can request a tour of the restored Persian Terrace, Grand Ballroom, and lobby.
Dine in the hotel's restored 1924 public spaces, including the Persian Terrace. Non-guests are welcome in the lobby, restaurants, and bar during posted hours.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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