First, Tip the Concierge
It was a change of pace to read a New York Times article that wasn’t infused with politics—above, below and in-between the lines, bashing Trump and his oddball assortment of cabinet nominees—and one that piqued a longtime interest of mine. I love hotels. As reporter Matthew Haag wrote, the news wasn’t positive: hotel rates in New York City aren’t for the budget-conscious as holiday tourism begins. In truth, the same article could’ve been, and probably was, written every year, save pandemic time, although I was surprised to see that a night in a Manhattan Holiday Inn cost $600.
Haag included a standard flowery Thomas Friedman-in-a-Lyft-in-Beirut anecdote: “For a 10-day trip to New York City at the start of the fall, Rahul Chhibber knew he wanted to stay in Manhattan. He dreamed up of waking up as the city roared to life and spending his days people watching and writing in cafes. Then he saw the hotel prices.” It’s my experience that in the past decade the city “roars” to life less than any post-Depression year, as NYC gets sleepier in early-morning hours since so many storefronts are shuttered.
As a kid, hotels, in any part of the Northeast, were too expensive for my family, but my brothers and I had loads of fun at a favored motel in New Hampshire—I think it was called the Green Shutter—where the bunch of us would book two rooms, one for my parents, the other for whatever boys were along for the ride, on visits to see my elderly grandfather. My father’s dad didn’t really give a hoot about any of his grandchildren, so it was a pro forma excursion, but it’s where I learned to love fried Ipswich clams (with that juicy black belly) and the Boston daily newspapers. (In 1978, my brothers and I revived the tradition, booking rooms at some nameless establishment in the Poconos; my memory’s hazy from that weekend, although making fools of ourselves at a shooting range and heckling an awful stand-up at a comedy club stand out.)
My first experience with real hotels—aside from fleabags in the East Village and Los Angeles as an 18-year-old, the kind that had no locks on the doors and you dreaded heading to the filthy communal bathroom, I always carried my pocket knife, as if that would be a deterrent to Bad Men—came in the 1970s on a three-week trip to Europe, when I was charged with minding my young niece and nephew. One night, as my oldest brother circled around Paris—the road maps sucked—after numerous non-vacancies, my French-fluent sister-in-law booked us two rooms at Le Meurice, at $100 a pop, which despite inflation still seems pretty reasonable. My first mini-bar: I thought the beers were on the house, and received a “What were you thinking, pal?” lecture the next morning.
I’ve stayed at hotels all over the world: my favorites include the Oriental in Bangkok, Lake Como’s Villa d’Este (a honeymoon stay in 1992), London’s Blake, Hyde Park Hotel, Claridge’s, and 47 Park Street, Le Bristol in Paris (the kindest staff I’ve ever encountered) Dublin’s Shelbourne, Berlin’s Kempinski, the Camino Real in Mexico City, the Alvear Palace in Buenos Aires, the Four Seasons in Nevis and the Regent Hong Kong. In 1986, my brother Doug and I lodged at the grand Europa in Belfast, and though the barbed wire surrounding the property was ominous, rooms went for an American song because of the violence at the time.
Domestically, I’m a fan of San Francisco’s Stanford Court, the Four Seasons in Seattle and Boston, Chicago’s Drake Hotel, the Bel-Air and Shutters in Los Angeles and the Peninsula and Carlyle in New York. In general, I’m not exceptionally extravagant—no flashy cars, second home or booking a private plane—but I like classic hotels, and, since I’m one of the few Americans who still uses a travel agent, I get excellent deals.
The accompanying photo is of my brother moments after we arrived at Le Meurice, both of us knocked out by the luxury.
Look at the clues to figure out the year: Margaret Thatcher becomes first female leader of any party in the U.K.; Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal is killed by his nephew; Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declares state of emergency in India; London’s Hilton Hotel bombed by IRA, and a bomb kills 11 at LaGuardia Airport; Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation and James Purdy’s In a Shallow Grave are published; Wheel of Fortune debuts on NBC; the Philadelphia Flyers win the Stanley Cup; Balthazar Getty is born and Cannonball Adderly dies; Captain & Tennille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together” is #1 on Billboard’s year-end chart, and Jethro Tull’s “Bungle In the Jungle” is #89; “American Women” are Time magazine’s Persons of the Year; and Shampoo is the fourth-highest grossing film.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023