AMERICAN PALACE

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 March 1937, Page 10

AMERICAN PALACE

WHERE THE GUEST IS KING. 5 Nights and days of prowling about the corridors and cellarways of London’s Savoy Hotel gave Arnold Bennett. material for a best-selling novel. Glorifying the tine inn of to-day. it was called “Imperial Palace" and dramatised the human and mechanical phantasmagoria which never ceases in a. large luxury hotel where national and international social and business activities are concentrated. At about the time his novel was appearing in bookshops, a similar hotel in the United States closed it's doors after several decades; it. was the o)d Waldorf-Astoria, on New York’s Fifth Avenue. The structure was razed, and the Empire State building soared JO2 stories on the site. . . But 15 clocks north, and two east, there arose, presently, a new WaldorfAstoria to preserve the old traditions, founded on solid rock, with three stories below ground, and twin towers reaching up 17 stories. A great newspaper called it. “the unofficial palace of New York." More than that, it is a city in itself, with a permanent and shifting population numbering from 5000 to 10,000. and upward, daily, a lodging place, a boarding place, a cultural centre; not the only luxury hotel in America, but one of the best on any coiitinent.

| LATE AFTERNOON. ; Streams of traffic, flee north along j sleek Park Avenue. One car turns off into Fiftieth Street, and enters a j private covered driveway piercing the , great hulk of the Waldorf-Astoria A I tall, uniformed figure swings open the I door and stands at attention as a man ; and woman emerge. Footmen spring to aid them, to relieve them of all burdens. ahd to escort them within. Past heavy doors of glass and metal they proceed, and up a wide Hight of stairs covered with deep, red carpel. Swift, elevators whisk them to the sixteenth floor, where they are eonducted along a broad corridor, deeppiled, to :i spacious and attractive room. From its windows the airy towers of New York appear to be built of squares of yellow light, laid against the darkening sky. . . Their Highnesses, Mr and Mrs Patron, are at home in the Imperial Palace;

U.S.A, The arrival of Mr and Mrs Patron was expected. They had radioed from the s.s. Normandie, at sea, asking for rooms. To-day the entire staff, is ready to bow to the slightest wish expressed by these distinguished guests—and all guests are distinguished! Staff members try to think of things to make them happier and more contented, to give them peace and quiet. The rooms contain a score of little amenities for their convenience and comfort. The key to hotel success is such thoughtfulness, and courtesy by all members of the staff. The guest may not. always be right, but he must be treated as though he were.

"Courtesy, our greatest, assets, costs us nothing,” the staff is told, and courtesy is obtained, as the hotel man says, "by keeping everlastingly tit it."

Doormen, footmen, bell captains, bellmen, elevator starters and operators, lobby porters, ballroom ushers, package boys, and parcel room-at-tendants —all must know the geography of the. hotel, must know the answers to innumerable questions, nitist be neat, erect, and pleasing in I manner, atentive, businesslike, and I able to co-operate with other members of the staff. Each employee must know his manual, which tells him exactly what to do under all circumstances. EVENING. | It is the dinner hour. Snatches of ■ music drift from the Serf Room. White shirt-fronts ind velvet gowns begin to appear on the staircase from the Park Avenue entrance. Others in formal attire come from the private’ driveway, or from the elevators, whose doors open -an-close-open-aml-close in smooth rhythm. Warmth, soft, lights, perfume—-all convey a sense of well-

being. Other groups converge upon the Empire Room, while high up in the hotel, in the Canadian Club and in the Junior League Club, two of several private clubs with permanent rooms in the hotel, parties appear for l ei ore-t he-1 heat re dinners. There is a banquet in the great ballroom, with a number of nationally famous figures present•; and a dinner in a private dining room on the fourth floor will be addressed by an explorer of world! reputation. I

Out. beyond those mysterious doors, through which the public rarely goes,

is a bustle of ordered activity. There are the kitchens, where rests the burden of the hotel’s service to the hungry, especially between 5 and 7 p.m., one of the peak periods. Not one kitchen, but several, on different floors, serving the various restaurants and dining rooms, and providing room service."

It is like the non-public parts of a ship. Everything is spotless and cleared for action. The corridors are hare, quite different from the. deepcarpeted hallways on the other side of the service doors. The kitchens are of shining steel and aluminium, glistening galleys, presided over by white-capped chefs. Uniformed waiters and bus boys pass and re-

pass. In these kitchens, specialisation has been made an art. Certain sections are single-minded about such things as vegetable preparation, pastrymaking. dish-washing, silver polishing. There arc experts known as oyster men, salad girls, silver men, toast men, fry cooks, pot washers, fish cooks, ice cream makers, and head dish washers, as well as the waiters and bus boys.

Good service in ehy department of the hotel, the staff is told, lies in organising so that errors do not occur. Every person’s work is definitely thought out and assigned; everyone is instructed and trained to the last degree. And there must be perfect co-operation between every department to make perfect, service.

For cxatnplc. if Mrs. ’Patron decides rhe will have breakfast in bed. she gives her order by telephone, and so starts a chain of operations, involving the telephone department, an order writer, a waiter, cooks, checkers, cashiers, the accounting department the audit department. Each department is dependent on the other, and unless all function perfectly, there is a hitch. |

’Pho chef makes up the menus for the restaurants about four days in advance. He tiles a requisition with the chief steward for supplies. These needs go on to the stewards' market list, which he compares with the stockin hand in the sub-basement, find buys only what, he requires. In the morning, the chef issues to t üb-department, heads in kitchens and re;;i aura in s his orders as to the number ol portions of all dishes to be I required. This estimate demands consideration, among other things, of the general state of business, the day

of the week—because Wednesdays and Saturdays are popular luncheon days, in Winter—the number of gupsts in the house, the weather conditions. Banquets and big balls call for the service, sometimes, of thousands of persons, entirely apart from the business which goes on as usual in tho regular restaurants. Meals arc available, through room service, at all hours of the night, and snacks and sizeable meals are called for even at 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning.