THE GREAT NEW YORK HOTELS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 41, 18 February 1911, Page 10

THE GREAT NEW YORK HOTELS

I stayed just one night, in one of the biggest and richest hotels in New York, writes a special correspondent of bhe Sydney Herald. You want to be a millionaire to enjoy the hotel properly, though, perhaps,' you could go there on a capital of £100,000 without feeling miserable. It is not the hot-el itself that grates on you — that is well-planned and well-managed. It is the atmosphere Of money-worship and sycophancy that gets on your nerves. It is apt lo make the ordinary impecunious tourist feel like a criminal from the moment he enters — liable to be detected and arrested at any moment on suspicion of not being able to afford it. The diningrconi was fabulously sumptuous, Turkey carpets softer than moss, marbled walls, soft shaded lights, a ■small orchestra rendering perfect music for the entrees, and still more perfect for the joints. The guests did not all wear evening dress, but, as they marched from the room, they seemed to ooze gold ; and the head waiter bowed them, out of the room with a smile which seemed to say : "Oh, why will you not let me rub my forehead in. tho carpet?" One asked for one's bill, and fled from the hotel bofor'* breakfast next morning, bag in hand, without looking round, and never stopped to draw breath till one was safely in a comfortable place down the city where the waiters were black, and the meals, if you were not hungry, need not come to more than 4s or &s each. It only remains to bo said that weeks afterwards, when one found, somo 3000 miles away, that one had left some little article of no great value on one's way across America, the officials of that great hotel went to the trouble of finding it, forwarding it to England, paying for its carriage, and trusting one to refund the amount. Of course, every bedroom in both these hotels had a telephone—even in third-rate hotels they have that. Tho line goes first to the clerk on your landing — in some of the big hotels they have a clerk on, every floor — and then on to the hotel exchange, and anywhere you wish to speak to. You may ring up the valet and hire a complete outfit of evening clothes, opera, hat, neckties, shirt, dress buttons, collar, pumps, and stockings — there is a special notice on your writing table to tell you so. "You may ring up the medica] masseur any time of the night or day. You may ring up the taxicab office, news stand, bookstall, theatre ticket of fice, two cable and telegraph offices, and a messenger service office— they are all in the hotel. If you are unusuel to tho ways of the New York shops a lady shopper will be furnished at the hotel office to go with you. There is a special broker on one of the lower floors to do your business ; and any time you pass the manicur^ department you will see serious-looking men sitting at little tables having thtir nails manicured by young ladies. You can post your letters on any floor of the hotel— they run down a glass shcot to the basement} and practically ©very bedroom has its own exquisitely-fitted bathroom I heard an Englishman ask another on the Marama, "Don't you wonder they haven't got any first-class hotels :n: n Australia?" His friend didn't wonder. "Australians wouldn't pay more than 15s a day," he said, "and what could you expect for that?" All one can say is that if "decent hotels" mean the smirking and obsequiousness toward the rich, with all the sycophancy and poverty in the background, which appear to accompany the sumptuous hotels in New York, may Australians never be civilised enough to acquire a taste for them!