in attendance. The Hyatt Regency was one of several hotels in midtown Manhattan to be developed during the late 1970s. The hotel's renovation was temporarily delayed by a labor strike in August 1978. The city government originally planned a sales tax on construction materials to fund other improvements in the area, including $2 million for a cleaning of Grand Central Terminal's facade. The city waived the sales tax after Trump agreed to fund the facade-restoration project directly. As part of the project, a mezzanine was constructed between the Hyatt hotel and the terminal. The project had become known as the Grand Hyatt New York by early 1979. The Commodore was gutted almost entirely to its steel frame, although the Trump Organization salvaged 200 copper faces on the original facade's cornice. The Hyatt's new facade was being installed by the end of 1979. Hotel officials began conducting job interviews in mid-1980, and they hired Fred Alexander as the hotel's first general manager. The renovation ultimately cost $100 million. This amounted to approximately $80,000 per room, although Trump estimated that a new hotel on the same site would have cost twice as much. Hyatt operation Reopening and early years The hotel officially reopened in September 1980 as the Grand Hyatt New York. The Grand Hyatt was one of 13 large hotels, with a combined 9,000 rooms, that had opened in New York City during the early 1980s. The Grand Hyatt's opening coincided with the revival of the surrounding area, although there was disagreement over whether the hotel's renovation impacted the neighborhood's revival. At the time of its reopening, all of the rooms had been booked, but an unidentified hospitality-industry expert estimated the next year that as many as 40 percent of the hotel's rooms were empty. Nonetheless, the Sun Garden bar quickly became popular with nearby office workers. The Grand Hyatt began hosting Major League Baseball teams during World Series games, accommodating all visiting MLB teams. A restaurant called Trumpets opened within the hotel's base in early 1981. The same year, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) announced that they planned to use eminent domain to acquire of the Grand Hyatt's basement and reconstruct a subway entrance there. Regional newspaper Newsday estimated that, in the first five years of the hotel's operation, the tax abatement saved Trump and Hyatt $5.5 million annually. Local civic group Grand Central Partnership installed floodlights on the hotel's