Residential hotels were a popular type of urban housing for middle-income Americans from the 1920s to the post-war era and the Colburn was built “for those families wanting all the comforts, conveniences and luxuries of the highest grade hotel.” In the mid-1940s a bar was added on the first floor where Neal Cassady, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg reportedly spent time in the summer of 1947. In 1964 the bar became Charlie Brown’s and remains open today. During the 1950s and 60s, the hotel transitioned from housing primarily long-term tenants to more short-term transitional housing, a function it continued to serve until 1989.