Irving Maidman (Feb. 25, 1897–Oct. 7, 1979) was a Manhattan real estate developer and theater owner. He was elected to The Lambs in 1961 as a Non-Professional member.
For around one year, he owned the Vanderbilt Theatre at 148 West 48th Street, designed by architect Eugene De Rosa. It opened in 1918 and fell on hard times. No new shows played at the theatre from 1939 until 1953, when it was a radio studio. Maidman purchased the theatre and began to produce new shows in 1953, but the theatre was demolished after only a year, replaced by a six-story parking garage and later a hotel.
Maidman was also the early developer of the “Theatre Row” cluster of six performance theaters staging a variety of plays and musicals with resident companies. He had developed 408, 416, 420, 422, and 440–44 West 42nd Street. Theatre Row was first established in 1977 in conjunction with the 42nd Street Development Corporation in an effort to convert adult entertainment venues into Off Broadway theatres.
In 1955, Maidman built the West Side Airline Terminal (460 W. 42nd St) to bus Delta, Braniff, American, and Eastern passengers in Manhattan to Newark Airport from 1955-1972.
He then had a vision to create Motel City (1962), betting tourists would rather stay in a motel on the West Side of Manhattan than in New Jersey. Maidman built the Riviera Congress Motor Inn, a prominent eight-story, 150-room motor hotel located at 550 10th Avenue (at 41st Street), described in 1961 as the tallest motor hotel in the city. It was demolished; Today it’s part of Hudson Yards.
However, Maidman’s grandest act was as a railroad owner. He came to control in 1962 the fading New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway. It operates over 400 miles of trackage in three states. He previously acquired the former Ford Edgewater plant for use as a rental warehouse, and since the NYSW served the building, Maidman opted to purchase the majority of the railroad’s shares to ensure freight service remained active. He also discontinued all of the NYS&W’s bus lines, and he filed a petition to New Jersey to terminate all of the railroad’s commuter services. As a desperate attempt to eliminate all ridership, Maidman personally offered to pay the NYS&W’s 200 remaining commuters $1,000 each to stop using their trains. After a long court fight, Maidman prevailed.
Irving Maidman died in 1979 and is interred in Mount Hebron Cemetery, Flushing, Queens.
Researched and written by Shepherd Kevin C. Fitzpatrick (2026)