The Russian Tea Room, at 150 West 57th Street, was opened in 1927 by former members of the Russian Imperial Ballet as a gathering place for Russian expatriates and became famous as a gathering place for those in the entertainment industry. The founder is often considered to be Polish-born Jacob Zysman, but in that year a corporation directory gives Albertina Rasch as the president and her name appears along with Russian Art Chocolate and Russian Tea Room in early photographs of the shopfront at 145 W. 57th St. In 1929, the business moved across the street to its present location, which at that time was an Italianate brownstone built in 1875 by German immigrant John F. Pupke, a tea and coffee merchant, whose son later moved the large clan to Valley Stream, Long Island, seeking a more relaxed lifestyle. By 1933, the Siberian emigre Alexander Maeef took over Russian Tea Room and ran it for the next 15 years. In 1955, the restaurant was purchased by Sidney Kaye, who, in 1967, left the restaurant to his widow, Faith Stewart-Gordon. In 1981, Harry B. Macklowe, the developer of the Metropolitan Tower, planned a large office tower that would have included not only his own site but also the restaurant's and the lot on which Carnegie Hall Tower was erected. Stewart-Gordon, who owned the lot dividing the project, refused to sell. Macklowe also offered to buy the air rights only and to give room for her restaurant inside the new tower building, but Stewart-Gordon declined. The result is the narrow twenty-foot gap separating the Metropolitan and Carnegie Hall towers. In December 1996, Warner LeRoy bought the restaurant from Stewart-Gordon for $6.5 million and closed it down, much to the despair of New York high society. After four years and $36 million in renovations, it reopened, but it was never the same; it closed with little notice on Sunday, July 28, 2002, after declaring bankruptcy. After Warner LeRoy died, his estate sold the property for $16 million to the United States Golf Association in December 2002. The Association had planned to reconfigure the property as a dining room and museum in which to showcase its extensive collection of golf memorabilia, but instead it sold the building in 2004 to the RTR Funding Group of Gerald Lieblich. The Russian Tea Room reopened on November 1, 2006. The restaurant interior hasn't been touched and the over-the-top decor is the same as when it closed in 2002.

I fell in love with this place when I saw it, which was a hostel until recently. It's a converted schoolhouse dating from 1885. It's now up for sale for a modest sum...

A description of the place reads:

Maria’s Schoolhouse is a beautiful converted schoolhouse set in lush countryside and a few minutes away from unspoilt beaches and inlets, popular with both picnicking families and kayakers.

Union Hall village is also a few minutes walk and has a supermarket, post office and 5 pubs. Maria's decor is bold and vibrant and the living room/dining room is vast with a huge cathedral style ceiling. There is a self catering kitchen but delicious, organic breakfasts and meals are available on request.

Leisure facilities in and around the village include golf, tennis, pitch & putt, horse riding, sea kayaking, as well as sea-angling and trout fishing in nearby lakes. There are plenty of sheltered coves for swimming and wonderful opportunities for coastal and woodland walking.

Within walking distance of Maria's Schoolhouse is Ceim Hill Museum, with artefacts from the stone-age onwards. There are also a number of little known beauty spots such as Carrigillihy inlet, Squince Harbour and Rabbit Island. Myross and Blind Harbour are beautiful inlets ideal for windsurfing and canoeing. From Reen Pier you have access to magnificent Castlehaven Bay and Rineen Estuary. The Schoolhouse overlooks Lake Cluhir and the ruins of Cahergal Fort still preside over the valley from the hill above.