Vintage123

Scrubbing in the early morning

In reading the June 1896 issue of Ladies’ Home Journal, I came across a fascinating article about how a large hotel was run. The hotel was the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City, and after doing some quick research, I discovered that it was a very well-known and popular hotel at around the turn of the last century. Construction began in 1856 and took about three years to complete. As Wikipedia states,

“At the time of its construction it stood so far uptown from the centers of city life it was dubbed ‘Eno’s Folly’; New York bankers refused to capitalize the project, and Eno turned to Boston for funding. It quickly developed a reputation as New York’s most elegant hotel, brought in a quarter of a million dollars a year in profits, and spurred development of additional hotels to the north and west: the Fifth Avenue Hotel ‘became the social, cultural political hub of elite New York.’”

I highly recommend the Wikipedia article as it describes very well what the hotel looked like and lists some famous people associated with the hotel.

The hotel kitchen, while dinner is being served.

The pictures accompanying my post actually come from the article in my 1896 magazine. The article contains wonderfully interesting information on what it took to run a large city hotel at the time, and I have scanned a copy of the entire two pages at the end of this post which you may enjoy reading. As the author states, “So as to give some idea of the internal economy of a great hotel the writer recently paid a few visits to the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City, a hotel which has become, on account of its long prominence, a kind of national institution.” Here are some of the highlights:

“When the stillness of night has settled upon the house, and all save stray travelers and belated revelers are in bed and asleep, the cleaning and burnishing up begins. This is at three o’clock in the morning, when a force of fifteen scrubbers, and ten dusters and sweepers are put to work. The halls and stairways are swept and dusted, and the uncovered floors are scrubbed and polished. This work is all finished by six o’clock in the morning, so that the very early risers find that all has been made nice and clean for the new day.”

And as you can see in the picture above, there was a very large and busy kitchen to keep the guests of the hotel well fed. But the types of dishes they preferred seem very different than what we would find today, and to me it was fascinating to learn about their menu:

“Green turtle soup is the most popular with hotel diners, and when that is on the bill-of-far an extra quantity must be provided. When a popular game, such as grouse, or partridge, or quail, or canvas-back duck, is on the bill-of-fare then the supply must be very liberal. The record shows that eight out of ten will call for canvas-back, seven out of ten for quail, six out of ten for partridge and grouse. There are four portions to a grouse, partridge, and duck, and only one to a quail. There is one thing of which at dinner it is tolerably safe to say that every guest will call for - ice cream. And, therefore, this is made in great quantities - eighty quarts a day - and sometimes a new freezer or so is started after dinner has begun. Roast beef is much more popular than any other meat.”

Finally, in 1908, the end of an era came when the hotel was torn down. I was thrilled to find the New York Times story about this event, and you can read it here at the New York Times website but please note this will open a PDF file. The story appeared in the April 4, 1908 edition of the paper, and part of the article states that

“For the last two weeks guests who have made the hotel their home for years have been moving out, not without much sorrow. Men and women from all parts of the country, for whom the hotel holds a pleasant memory, have been visiting it for the last time. Old employees have been bidding other old employees good-bye, and sightseers have been passing through just for the pleasure of being able to say years hence that they saw the ‘American Corner.’”

I invite you to click on the scans below and read the article in its entirety. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!