noboby asked me
Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 239: Hotel History: The Algonquin Hotel, NY (1902)
Stanley Turkel | November 3, 2020
by Stanley Turkel, CMHS Hotel History: The Algonquin Hotel (181 rooms) The Algonquin Hotel was originally planned as an apartment hotel with the idea of renting unfurnished rooms and suites on yearly leases to permanent tenants. When few leases sold, the owner decided to turn it into a transient hotel, which he was going to name “The Puritan”. Frank Case, the first general manager, objected and told the owner “it… contradicts the spirit of innkeeping. It is cold, forbidding and grim. I don’t like it.” When the owner replied, “You think yourself so smart, suppose you find a better name,” Case went to the public library to...
Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 230: Hotel History: Four Seasons Hotel
Stanley Turkel | April 28, 2020
By Stanley Turkel, CMHS Hotel History: Four Seasons Hotel, (367 rooms) Is it possible to conceive that the Four Seasons Hotel in New York has been converted to house medical professionals battling the coronavirus? In late March, the five-star Four Seasons Hotel located on East 57th Street began to accept hospital employees who work in mid-Manhattan. This I.M. Pei-designed hotel was surely the most talked-about new hotel in New York when it opened in 1993 at a cost $1 million per room. This 52-story, 367 room building with its limestone-clad lobby, 33-foot-high onyx ceiling, glowing wall sconces and original paintings provided grandeu...
Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 201: Hotel History: Architect Morris Lapidus
Stanley Turkel | September 5, 2018
By Stanley Turkel, CMHS Hotel History: Architect Morris Lapidus (1902-2001) Morris Lapidus was an architect, primarily known for his Neo-baroque "Miami Modern" hotels constructed in the 1950s and 60s, which have since come to define that era's resort-hotel style – synonymous with Miami and Miami Beach. A Russian immigrant raised in New York, Lapidus designed over 1,000 buildings during a career spanning more than 50 years, much of it spent as an outsider to the American architectural establishment. Born in Odessa in the Russian Empire (now the Ukraine), his Orthodox Jewish family fled Russian pogroms to New York when he was an in...
Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 155: Hotel History: The Willard Hotel (1901), Washington, D.C.*; Hot Off The Press: My New Book
Stanley Turkel | January 25, 2016
By Stanley Turkel, CMHS 1. Hotel History: The Willard Hotel (335 rooms) The National Park Service and the U.S. Department of the Interior describe the history of the Willard Hotel as follows: American author Nathaniel Hawthorne observed in the 1860s that "the Willard Hotel more justly could be called the center of Washington than either the Capitol or the White House or the State Department." From 1847 when the enterprising Willard brothers, Henry and Edwin, first set up as innkeepers on the corner of 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, the Willard has occupied a unique niche in the history of Washington and the nation&hellip...
Nobody Asked Me, But…No. 152: Hotel History: Balsams Grand Resort Hotel (1866)*, Dixville Notch
Stanley Turkel, CMHS | November 23, 2015
By Stanley Turkel, CMHS Hotel History: Balsams Grand Resort Hotel (203 rooms) The Balsams first opened just after the Civil War as the Dix House, a rustic 25-room summer inn established by local innkeeper, George Parsons. The original inn honored the name of the town's founding father and first landowner, Colonel Timothy Dix. A patriot of the American Revolution, Dix lost his life in battle in 1812, at which point his attorney and business partner, Daniel Webster, took over. Webster sponsored the town's first settlers, the Whittemore family. These pioneers shared their hearth and home with wayfarers on the old Coös Trail...
Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 148; Hotel History: French Lick Springs Hotel, French Lick, Indiana*
Stanley Turkel, CMHS | September 8, 2015
Availability as an Expert Witness By Stanley Turkel, CMHS 1. Hotel History: French Lick Springs Hotel, French Lick, Indiana* The first hotel was built on this site in 1845 by Dr. William Bowles as a health resort to take advantage of the natural sulphur springs and mineral water. The original hotel burned down in 1897 but was rebuilt on a grander scale by Thomas Taggart, the mayor of Indianapolis (and later a U.S. Senator). The Monon Railroad built a spur directly to the hotel grounds with daily passenger service to Chicago. Casino gambling, although illegal, flourished at the resort. In its heyday in the Roaring Twenties, the surroundi...
Nobody Asked Me, But…No. 141; Hotel History: The Grand Hotel, Point Clear, Alabama (1847)
Stanley Turkel, CMHS | May 4, 2015
My Latest Book: See the New York Times Review By Stanley Turkel, CMHS 1. Hotel History: The Grand Hotel, Point Clear, Alabama* The site on which The Grand Hotel sits today has seen two earlier hotels so named and the area surrounding the hotel and grounds has had a long and exciting history. It begins in 1847, when a Mr. Chamberlain built a rambling, 100-foot long, two-story hotel with lumber brought down from Mobile by sailboats. There were forty guest rooms and a shaded front gallery with outside stairs at each end. The dining room was located in an adjacent structure, and a third two-story building, called The Texas, housed the bar. ...
Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 136; Hotel History: Hotel Albert (1883)
Stanley Turkel, CMHS | February 2, 2015
My New Book: "Hotel Mavens: Lucius M. Boomer, George C. Boldt and Oscar of the Waldorf" By Stanley Turkel, CMHS 1. Hotel History: Hotel Albert: "The Downtown Algonquin" * The original twelve-story Hotel Albert, a red-brick and cast-iron balcony structure, still stands on the southwest corner of University Place and 11th Street in Greenwich Village. It is now a residential cooperative. But the history of the Albert is much more complicated than the simple recitation above. We are fortunate to have an extensive, recently-published (April 2011) history of the Hotel Albert prepared by Anthony W. Robins, architectural historian, of Thompson ...
