Never A Dull Moment In “Skid Row” Hotel

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30633, 26 December 1964, Page 16

Never A Dull Moment In “Skid Row” Hotel

"The Press” Special Service AUCKLAND, Dec. 25. When offered a job as a hotel manager in San Francisco, Mrs P. Hubber, an Auckland woman, found that the pay was good, but there was a catch. The seven-storey hotel was on Third street In the heart of the city’s “skid rw,” and its customers were alcoholics, drifters and drug addicts. The police officer who issued Mrs Hubber with her gun permit estimated the New Zealander would last a week on the job. He wished her luck and told her she would need it. He was partly night. Mrs Hubber needed a lot of luck, but she did not quit until 18 months later when, as she said in Auckland, “I was beginning to feel like an alcoholic and drug addict myself.” Mrs Hubber is a former ship’s stewardess. She had a variety of jobs during her 20 years in America and left a position as a children’s nurse to become a “skid row” hotel manager. “I was the only woman among 150 men,” said Mrs Hubber. “I mended their clothes, cut their hair and cleaned them up after they'd been in fights. Sympathy. Discipline “I was really sorry for them, but you have to be a little hard, too. I mean, when I first started I really thought when one of them asked me for 15 cents for a cup of coffee he was going to buy coffee. “I didn’t know cheap wine was 15 cents a bottle, but I soon found out.” Mrs Hubber found the work arduous, but never dull. Not with a hotel full of men living a lost week-end without an end. “I had a fire bug oncef she said. “Seven fires seven days in a row. The fire department was going mad and I had the arson squad running round in circles. “I didn’t know what to do. I kicked out the last seven guys who’d booked in. I figured it must be one of them that was throwing lighted paper down the trash chute.” The fire bug was finally caught setting the bathroom towels alight. Did Mrs Hubber ever have to threaten any of her guests with her gun? Shot Man “No, but I shot a man in | the leg,” she said. “I was mending a pair of slacks and this fellow came 'in and said, ‘Give me those

trousers.* He was on the dope and I told him to go away. He threw down a few cents and said, ‘l’ll buy them off you,’ and I said, ‘No, you can't have them.’ “‘l’ll pull the door down,’ he yelled, and he did. He pulled it right off its hinges. “I thought if he’s going to tear the place apart he’ll probably tear me apart too. so I grabbed my gun and let him have it in the leg. It was no use waiting for the police to come and calm him down.” Mrs Hubber has never been the sort to faint at the sight of blood, but a knife fight between two young Negro drug addicts convinced her it was time to be heading back to Auckland. 15 Stab Wounds “One of the poor devils had 15 stab wounds. He had this great, long carving knife right through his stomach and I had to pull it out.

“He survived, but he’s paralysed. He’ll never walk again.” Mrs Hubber left her “skid row” hotel—larger than any Auckland hostelry —with mixed feelings. “You can’t get staff for a hotel like that,” she said. “I was always short-handed. I worked seven days a week and I didn’t get a day off for a year. “The pay was good, about £39 a week, and I had a free apartment. It was neneracking, but it was one job in which I really felt I was doing something worthwhile.” And what about her guests? “I’ll miss them.” said Mrs Hubber. “You know those boys always paid their debts —never missed. “And they treated me like a lady—even the guy I had to shoot.”