"Where are You Stopping?"

GEORGE S. CHAPPELL

A Few Notes on the New York Hotels and the Habits of their Inmates

ONE of the most interesting sides of the amazing metropolitan development of New York is found in the multiplicity and variety of its hotels. Travellers through the hinterland of the country may still find themselves occasionally in a community of limited hostelries such as that in which a seeker for shelter, asking "Is that the best hotel? " was told, laconically, "It's gotter be."

New York has passed far beyond that point. There is a hotel for every kind of human being in the world and there are apparently ample numbers of each kind to fill them. New ones arc opened daily and promptly hang out the standing-room-only sign.

When one meets a friend from out of town the question, "Where are you stopping?" rises naturally to the lips. But it is hardly necessary to ask it. 1'he hotels have created their own types. Each is distinct and unmistakable. It has been my pleasure to study this vast floating population and I can tell at a glance where any visitor has parked his pajamas in obedience to an unwritten law.

THAT gentleman, for instance, whom you sec on the street with the slightly extreme felt hat and the clean-shaven, intense, go-getter face is inevitably registered at one of the great terminal caravansaries. He is Mr. J. W. Crash of Beaver Falls, Wis., and he is here, with wife and daughter, for the annual convention of the Pulp and Paper Manufacturers. When the Crash family hit New York, they never think of going more than two hundred yards from the Grand Central Station before staking out their temporary claim. They have come from the well-known open spaces, and, though they like it in the hurly-burly, they bring with them something of the timidity of the deer who nip the buds in the home garden. They like to feel that a short sprint will land them on the backplatform of the Chicago Limited any time they get panicky. In the meantime, quite a number of folks they know are right at hand, all the best Pulp and Paper families are quartered under the same roof, and, without venturing out into the dizzy traffic, they can get all the action they want.

If you followed Mr. Crash around for the next few days you would be able to listen to the most exciting after-dinner talks on repopulating our forests, lire protection, paper-making and coating, tariffs, inks, electrotyping, platemaking, wage-scales, binding, freight-rates, and dear me, no end of fascinating topics. Between meetings there are the genial little get-togethers in the individual rooms, particularlv those of the unattended males who have no women folk to burst in on the joyous deliberations. Here, it is said, most of the real business is done. Mr. Crash has quite a time explaining to Mrs. Crash how important it is for him to go up to Bill's room right after supper. A lot of important people are going to be there and she isn't to sit up for him, for the love of Mike.

Mrs. Crash really has little to complain of. Everything is at hand for her entertainment. There are shops of every sort directly attached to the hotel, a concert in the ball-room, dancing in the grill, magazines and papers, including the Beaver Falls Log, in the library, free postcards at the desk, the Pulp and Paper Rest Room on the mezzanine, where she can always find Mrs. Peavey of Saskatchewan and have a good gossip; and then there is always that marvellous, teeming lobby where hundreds of ladies sit staring at each other and say, "Where in the world do all these queer looking people come from? "

They are remarkable institutions, these huge hives which incorporate the pulse and throb of the city into their very beings. Trains rumble under their foundations and subway entrances seep through their vitals. Night and morning thousands of commuters scurry through the long passages, hurrying, like frightened rodents, to their individual holes.

At the end of Mr. Crash's visit comes the Annual Dinner in the great Banquet Room. Mrs. Crash and Alma arc looking their prettiest in newly bought dresses that are going to knock the eye out of Beaver Falls. Even the fact that Mrs. Peavey has a dress exactly like hers can not spoil Mrs. Crash's good time. A Senator winds up the evening with a burst of oratorical fireworks. Next day the pulp and paper populace moves out to make room for the Automobile Makers of America. A new set of keen, gogetter faces appears in the neighborhood of Forty-second Street and the whirling life of the Big Hotel goes on.

QUITE different, is the hotel selected by that dapper young man we saw getting into the taxi on Vanderbilt Avenue. He wears a shirt that was obviously never made anywhere but in New York or possibly Paris. That is young Wallace Dinsmore of Chicago. I sav Chicago but, really, the Dinsmorcs are of everywhere. Wallace is particularly cosmopolitan. He has just come on to New York for a haircut; for every perfectly groomed young man knows that he can not trust his head to those rough middle-western barbers who do something to the back of your neck that makes you look terribly ordinary. After leaving here, this young exquisite will run over to London to buy a few clothes. Of course he would never think of going to one of the mammoth hotels such as that sought out by people like the Crash's. No, indeed. The Dinsmorcs always have an apartment reserved at one of the small and exquisite hotels which seem, somehow, to match them.

Wallace Dinsmore doesn't even know where the big hotels arc. The taxi driver sees at a glance where his fare belongs. Wallace's direction is an unnecessary corroboration; for the vehicle is already threading its wav to the tasteful portal of the Bellevue where a portentous porter in gold and blue receives the guest and turns him over to a solemn door-man. There is an air of hush about the entrance halls of these select quarters which contrasts vividlv with the bustle of the terminal hotels. The clerk here does not receive you with any show of enthusiasm. His directions to the hall boy are given in whispers. You arc smuggled up to your room. You feel as you walk down the silent corridors as if the strains of "Lead, Kindly Light" might rise at any moment and the funeral begin.

Even during their gayest hours these smart rendezvous convey the impression of a certain well-bred restraint. The hum and murmur of conversation arc subdued, the music is soft and free from the more blatant jazzeries of the hoi polloi. An unobtrusive but vigilant censorship is exercised at the door of the tea-room. A person who doesn't belong is discouraged at the start by the cold looks which greet him, and, for coldness, the glance ol a head waiter who doesn't know you and who doesn't wish to know you is the ultimate Farthest North.

People like Wallace Dinsmore never have any trouble. They dress, look, and are the part. The doors open to them without question. There is always a table for them somewhere. They call the doorman, Otto, the captain, Louis and the waiter, Pierre. They are born into these hotels just as they arc born into certain exclusive clubs. In fact, I always feel that the hotels of a real, thoroughbred, social top-liner ought to be mentioned in their obituaries, just as their clubs are, for they have exactly the same significance.

THERE are a few imitation Dinsmorcs of H the lounge lizard family who creep into these precious purlieus and try to look as if they belonged there; but there is invariably something spurious about their make-up. Though these interlopers may spend much time and money in the selection of shirts and cravats, though they may wear their handkerchiefs up their sleeves and look at their wristwatches with just the right amount of ostentation, still there is something wrong with the picture, the blue of the shirt is too dark, the cravat is too unmistakably Broadway and not Picadilly.

Pretenders always fall down in the details; or, else, thev are on the defensive and not rude enough. They may fail in that little finish of arrogance which is the final hall-mark. For instance, when Wallace Dinsmore enters the dining room he takes the first table that is marked "Reserved." He simply assumes that it is reserved for him. His not to question why, or argue with a mere waiter. He sits down and is served.

In the halls of Wallace's hotel he meets people he knows. The hour before luncheon is a sort of informal reception. Ladies stand picturesquely in the foyer, exquisite creatures who match perfectly the carefully wrought creations of the most exclusive jewelers. The entire establishment is a great jewel case, finished to the last detail in the most refined taste from the painted panels of the elevator to the chaste Adams decoration of the lighting fixtures. Even the food smells refined. Into this solvent and sweet-scented atmosphere Wallace Dinsmore falls as inevitably as Mr. Crash lands in the terminal turmoil of his huge hostelry.

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That rather dowdy lady in black with the square-toed shoes and the square-jawed face is Mrs. Horace Munger of Middletown, Conn. When she comes to New York, she always makes for the same hotel where she stopped when she and Horace were on their wedding tour, thirty years ago. This is not due to any tenderness of sentiment on her part but to the fact that, as far as Mrs. Munger knows, no new hotels have been built since that happy time. She has never forgotten the effect that the golden decoration of the lobby had upon her then and she gets almost the same kick out of it now. Of course she is well known by this time and the clerk at the desk has a family smile for her as he says "Glad to see you, Mrs. Munger. Mr. and Mrs. Binney are here .... yes, . . . . and Miss Glathers is coming down from Troy tomorrow."

All the guests of the old hotel are one big family. They talk things over together when they meet on their semiannual visit. They sink into the great tufted chairs and gaze upon the glories about them and are content. The younger generation of hotelgoers may prefer the quiet effect of painted wood-work but give them the good old days of writhing gold ceilings, onyx wainscotings and electroliers wherein prudently draped nymphs peer from bunches of bronze rushes in which the light-bulbs cleverly simulate cat-tails. Other hotels may be more in the fashion but none has deeper carpets or a richer, mustier atmosphere.

The old hotel is dying on its feet. You can easily tell that by the elevator which is a relic of that early type in which the operator hauls on a rope and then waits patiently for something to happen. The car finally starts and creeps slowly upward. It requires a master hand to stop it within a foot of the desired level; but John, the elevator man, has been on the job since the hotel was first acclaimed—in the mid-eighties—as a marvel of gorgeousness and beauty. It is just as beautiful to-day and looks, if anything, a trifle more gorgeous than it ever did. At any rate, it suits Mrs. Munger and hundreds of her kind, and they will be heart broken when it is torn down a few years froin now to make room for the new office building that is going up on the site.

In the streets adjacent to Broadway and the theatre district lie the hotels which are inevitably sought out by the actor folk. When you see that dapper young man whose suit-case bears the label, Hello Helen Co., you can be sure that he will gravitate naturally into the west forties, where he will find friends in any one of a dozen meeting places. They are sandwiched in between theatres, theatrical clubs, wigmakers, costumers, photographers and music studios.

Jimmy Wills, whose dance stops the show every night at the Gotham Square, has a table every day for luncheon where he entertains all comers. Jimmy is high feather just now. He is playing in a success and no one takes more pleasure in telling about a success than an actor. This is a little hard on Tommy Wells at the next table, whose last three engagements have been flops, but he makes the most of it, moves Over to Jimmy's table for his coffee and, perhaps, a shot of Scotch afterwards in Jimmy's room, if Tommy only enthuses over him enough.

Near-by tables are filled with the famous stars of screen and stage, eating just like human beings, a little more eagerly, perhaps, as the meals of some of them do not come with that regularity which marks the feeding time of other professions. A table of critics and columnists is looked at somewhat askance. These are the newspaper guys who will josh you as you pass and stab a pen through you next day. Yet that is their job, and they must do it without fear or favour. This or that actor is hurrying off for a matinee performance. In some of the rooms upstairs vocalists are practising; a weird mixture of howls reaches the outer air. On the sidewalk in front of the hotel a number of mummers display themselves. They use the thoroughfare as their shop-window. A manager may pass by, see them and engage them for an important part.

And what a feature of the professional hotel is the clerk. He must have the tact of a great diplomatist to soothe the ruffled temperaments of some of the lady artists whom he houses; he must learn to listen sympathetically to a harrowing tale of jewels stolen while he sees the victim's publicity agent hovering in the distance; he must be able to stop a little "party" at just the right time; and, in the hurry and bustle of his migratory clientele, he must at times remind them that it is customary to stop at the desk for a moment before making a final exit.

I might go on with my hotel list indefinitely, for there are as many kinds of them as there are varieties of human beings. There is the foreign hotel, for instance, where the darkskinned, soft-eyed Latins go. You may drop into a charming milieu, at your choice, and hear the accents of French, Spanish or Italian and scent the aromas of their racial kitchens.

And who is not familiar with that austere nunnery, the Woman's Hotel, sanctuary of the spinster, where we may see the ancient female relatives, too cross to be borne in the home, too intelligent to be put in an institution, who are doomed to brood darkly in their manless Eden, where they sit solemnly in the lobby and cast glances of malignant curiosity at the new arrivals? These horrible, pitiful old creatures seldom venture out but sit at home like spiders. Occasionally, however, one sidles out for a brief foray, clinging close to the neighboring buildings as if attached by a thread. I can always tell one when I see her. I always know that, if I suddenly shouted "Boo," she would snap herself back into her web with terrible celerity.

And so it goes with all of the thousands of temporary occupants of our great city. A little study and it is possible to label them all. Tell me where you live and I will tell you what you are, or, if you prefer, tell me what you are and I will tell you where you live. Certainly, nothing could be fairer than that.