9 - The Trials of a Tailor

THE KOWLOON SHANGRI-LA, Hong Kong

Main lobby seen from the mezzanine

       I have always stayed at the Shangri-la Hotel on the Kowloon side when in Hong Kong.  It is not the very grandest of Hong Kong’s many grand hotels, but it is nevertheless extremely comfortable, managed with elegance and excellent value for money.

The elevator carpets --one for each day of the week-- are changed daily, appearing promptly at one minute after midnight.

A funny little memory  remains engraved from my first visit to Hong Kong in 1997.  I had never been to a tailor (there are many thousands of them in this exotic metropolis, and virtually every hotel boasts its resident tailor) and had found my way into the Shangri-la’s shop mainly out of curiosity.

A rather grand old woman who looked much like the late English actress, Gladys Cooper, was giving clipped, precise instructions when I arrived.

   

Gladys Cooper (Google archives) 

Johnny

 It was the last year of    British colonial   rule,  and I gathered the lady  had lived there for a long time.  She clearly had a lengthy experience with Johnny (Hong Kong tailors all appear to take Anglo Saxon noms de  plume, presumably  bearing no resemblance to their Asian birth names).

She was accompanied by her twenty-ish granddaughter whom I guessed to be on the point of marriage.  The English dowager had ordered at least a half-dozen outfits for the young woman who sat shyly in a corner, never voicing an opinion.

“Johnny” showed no emotion as the order became increasingly important.

As far as I could make out, there was no mention of price until the very last moment.  As “Gladys Cooper” was exiting the little shop, she glanced briefly in my direction with just a hint of impatience, as though I might have had the good taste not to be there.

She then turned with supreme self assurance to the tailor and said, “Now I don’t want you getting any foolish ideas about asking for a lot of money, because that is entirely out of the question!”

Did  I detect just a flicker of irony in Johnny’s response?   “Certainly not, Madame, I quite understand.”

Hong Kong by night

-o-

Hong Kong pictorial sidebar

Hong Kong Island seen from Victoria Peak

 

I’ve been to Hong Kong four times since that first visit in 1997. 

When I arrived the first time it was still officially British (It had been so from 1839 until 1997), and perhaps there were a few more Anglo-Saxons about, but it always seemed extremely exotic and multi-ethnic to me, particularly on the Kowloon side where I stay.  Officially, Hong Kong is now 95 percent Chinese, though there is still a much more international floating population.

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The Shangri-la:  Brenda during 2008 typhoon

 Brenda was with me on my last visit in 2008, and it coincided with Typhoon Nuri.  As hurricanes go, it was minor (although it cost the city several hundred thousand dollars, not including what looked like a million battered and abandoned umbrellas).  Watching the effects of gale winds on the Harbor from our hotel room was a nice change from the otherwise blisteringly hot August sun.

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In 2003 I took a local ferryboat to Macao.  It was only an hour’s journey, but was probably the most foreign seeming place I have ever known.  I was completely at a loss, as I never found a single soul who spoke English.  From the arrival port, I caught a taxi and told the driver in English and then in French:  “TO THE CENTER.” He kind of shrugged, but that was as far as our communication went.  After a few minutes drive, I said, “STOP”, and he did.  It seemed a pretty picturesque area, as the photos attest.  However, I have no idea where I was nor what might have been its significance. 

Macao 2003

The Star Ferry

A few hours strolling about sufficed, before I found my way back to the port, and caught a boat back to Hong Kong. 

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Hong Kong is said to have the highest  number of Rolls Royces in the world.  Quite a few of them are much in view at the entrances of the top hotels.  As seen here at the ex-Regent (now the Intercontinental), widely considered at one time to be the Island’s best.  Although I have always lodged at the Shangri-la, I did spend one night in 1997 at the Regent. 

 

Bellhop at The Regent

      Spectacular view of Hong Kong Harbor from the Regent Hotel dining room

                                                      

  

Flower market and enthusiastic diners at the all-night market

Brenda w/ bearded guy (photo by anonymous)

Your input is welcomed:  hotel-musings@hotmail.fr

Next Friday:  Danny, the night concièrge at the Gritti in Venice

 [Photos are mine, unless otherwise credited]

8 - A Date With Destiny

THE EXCELSIOR HOTEL, Florence circa 1979

Bellboy --watercolor by Chas-Laborde

      If I have any aptitude for hotel bargaining, it came about strictly by accident.   Like most people, it had never occurred to me that hotel rooms were negotiable.

What I discovered in Florence somewhat changed my life.   It opened up a whole new world of luxury hotel possibilities.

I had reserved what I thought to be a medium range boutique hotel, but upon arrival, I realized I had managed a major screw-up.  The hotel was too nice, too expensive, and fully booked with no reservation in my name.  When telephoning, the bookmark had undoubtedly slipped a line or two in my Michelin guide book, and I had no doubt reserved at another hotel (who knows which one) without realizing my error.

The reception staff was understanding and helpful, but could only offer to call elsewhere for me.   When they understood the modest price I had expected to pay, it became increasingly evident (and embarrassing) that the error had been mine.  A nearby pensione was located which --though indeed cheap-- was pretty elementary in comfort.

Florence, the Arno River (photo google archives)

I particularly remember some sort of rudimentary shower in the corner of the room with no curtain, as well as a dead roach (though hardly the first I had encountered, growing up in the South). 

As I had allotted two nights to Florence before leaving for Rome, I decided that drastic measures were needed, and I headed for the Hotel Excelsior, the grandest of the Italian CIGA hotels of the day, a category I would never have considered under normal circumstances.

I had first bargained with myself, deciding to brave that first night at the undesirable pensione, and to compensate with a taste of unaccustomed luxury the subsequent day.  As soon as I entered the Excelsior’s supremely baroque foyer, I was ready to make whatever sacrifice might prove necessary.

Facade of the Excelsior

I asked  the rate for a single room.  The distinguished dirretore responded with a figure which must have seemed about as high as I could  have ever feared. In total innocence I asked if there were not something less expensive.   I had heard of small rooms for domestic staff which the Parisian palaces sometimes offered.

To my surprise, the gentleman took a piece of paper and wrote down another figure, significantly less than the first one.  A fast learner, I responded by asking if there were not perhaps an even better price.   When the paper was returned to me with a good 50% off the original tariff, I felt as though swept up in a surrealist dream.   

 I couldn’t resist asking if there were not even less expensive quarters available.

The manager replied with the warmest, friendliest smile.  No, this was indeed his best price.  I told him I was delighted with our arrangement, and would arrive in the early morning of the following day.

The Starwood Excelsior lobby today, much as I remember it (photo google)

-o-


Your input is welcomed:  hotel-musings@hotmail.fr

Next Friday:  Trials of a Tailor, the Hong Kong Shangri-la

7 - Clementina, Still Lady of the Manor

GRAND ALBERGO TIMEO  --Taormina, Sicily

Clementina 1978

       When I met Clementina La Floresta, she  had already been at the Timeo for nearly seventy years.  She was closing in on ninety and her mind had begun to waver, but she was often alert and retained a sharp memory for the distant past. 

She was the Timeo’s owner, at least she had been.  Her adoring daughter and son-in-law had long since taken over the day-to-day management, but Clementina was usually there, seated regally in the lounge, ready to chat with guests, effortlessly diving in and out of a number of languages.

She had arrived in Sicily shortly after her eighteenth birthday to marry the owner of the esteemed Timeo, already a Taormina landmark after several decades of activity.

Portrait of Marcel Proust 1892

“I remember as if it were yesterday,” she once told me.  “My very first week in the hotel, I had the formidable task of having to escort Monsieur Marcel Proust into the dining room for dinner.  I was shaking like a leaf.”

She soon accustomed  herself to being the Timeo’s official hostess, and found herself charming the likes of Andre Gide and D.H. Lawrence (who is said to have written much of Lady Chatterly's Lover there); later Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni.  Not to mention the Vanderbilts, the Rothschilds and the Krupps.

At a time when world travel was reserved for the privileged, the Timeo was for connoisseurs.

In the ensuing years when I would return at Christmas, she was less chatty, but she always greeted each guest graciously with a smile, still very much the lady of the manor.

On my last visit in the early eighties, her daughter told me, with tears in her eyes,  the hotel was being sold.   It was a family tragedy, she said.  She and her sisters were born there; it had been created in 1873 by their grandfather..

Interior of the Timeo today (photo Orient Express)

There had been tensions between the siblings, and two other sisters, long since expatriated to Rome and Milan,  had preferred their part in cash.  The property was now worth much more than the hotel, itself.  It had its loyal following, but theirs had been an old- fashioned management, often wary of the modern world.    They hadn’t even wanted a pool, fearing it would attract a less desirable clientele.  

The sale had one important stipulation: Clementina and her family were to remain on the premises, and the old lady was never to be told the Timeo had been sold. 

 

In less than a year the hotel had closed down.  The buyer ended up in prison, though I never knew why.  It remained shut for many years thereafter, before being purchased by the Orient Express company.

I like to think that Clementina died in her own bed.    

-o-

PHOTOGRAPHING TAORMINA

     In those Timeo years, I had a horror of being taken for a tourist, and I tended to avoid carrying a camera in public places.

It was foolish, as I was certainly never taken for a native, no matter where I went nor how hard I tried.  I always enjoyed posing people for my hotel «portraits», but decided that scenic vistas and seascapes were best left to the postcard artists.

Unfortunately, I didn't bother to keep any postcards either.

For those who might be curious to see a bit more of Taormina, here are a few mostly black and white photos from the first part of the last century. Though well before I discovered Sicily, they better reflect the Taormina I knew than more recent photos with lots of cars and hordes of tourists (neither of which I recall from my winter trips there).

Towards the end of this two-minute slideshow are three turn-of-the-century pictures of the Timeo.  The vast terrace with its inimitable Grecian columns, majestically framing a snow-capped Mount Etna, is much as I remember.  Unfortunately, this outdoor solarium has since been transformed into a restaurant and swimming pool.

Needless to say, none of these photos are by me.  To enter, click on thumbnail below:

                                                                                         

                                              

click here

 

[Photos are mine, unless otherwise credited]

 

Your input is welcomed:  hotel-musings@hotmail.fr

Next Friday:  An Appointment With Destiny at the Hotel Excelsior, Florence (and still more from the Timeo at a later date)

 

6 - Travelling On My Own ...

THE PICCADILLY,  New York City

Piccadilly Hotel 1929

My first hotel all on my own  was New York’s Piccadilly in the Spring of 1968.  It was right in the heart of the theatre district, off  Times Square at West 45^th Street.  Its brochure boasted it as “the meeting place of the celebrities,” though the only one I ever saw there was Orson Bean, a television personality of the day.

  Another ad said the Piccadilly was “smartly located in the center of everything!”   I am pretty sure I could see Sardi’s from my window, and that was already pretty exciting for me.  It was big and booming and old fashioned.  Certainly not luxurious, but I loved what I perceived as its cosmopolitan atmosphere. 

(Photo Greensboro Record)

I was working for the Greensboro afternoon newspaper at the time, where I reported on school news and church notices, among other things.  Dottie wrote about show business, and her beat was needless to say more interesting.    

She was a bit of a local celebrity, seriously overweight and a dedicated drinker.  We worked together and we often did our drinking together.  We became great friends, and it was she who steered me to the Piccadilly as an inexpensive, conveniently located place to sleep. 

In the sixties and seventies it housed the groundfloor Scandia Restaurant known for its smorgasbord, adjacent to the Circus Bar.  I never ate there, because it seemed expensive and “smorgasbord” somehow sounded so foreign at the time.

I later learned that Ginger Rogers had lived there with her mother, Leila, when she was just starting out in the musical theatre in New York around 1930. I once had tea with G.R. when she was doing “Mame” in London, but I didn’t ask her anything about the Piccadilly.  

Early Ginger circa 1930

 The hotel’s entire crystal chandeliered ballroom, dating from 1928, was bought by a Detroit plastics factory when the hotel was razed in 1982.  The purchase included eight turn-of-the-century portraits painted directly onto the room’s pine panelling.

The Marriott Marquis now stands on the site.

The main restaurant and ballroom

As for Dottie, she died of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 42.  I fully expected a similarly early demise, and I was certainly heading in that direction.  However, life rarely works out as you’d expect, so here I am, against all odds, healthy and happy forty years on.

-o- 

SIDEBAR:  Fan mail still coming in 

When I started jotting down these memories, I checked google to see what kind of photos I might unearth, wondering if anyone else even remembered the old Piccadilly.

To my surprise, I discovered something akin to a parallel world where Piccadilly aficionados communicate on various websites about their experiences at this old Times Square landmark.

I contacted a few, including the last Piccadilly owner’s granddaughter, to get permission to include their comments.  Here are some:

Ricky says, “The first time I came to New York with a group from college, and we stayed at the Piccadilly. I can remember our room had wallpaper with huge yellow flowers on it and matching bedspreads. One night there was a horrible, very loud clanging noise that woke me up. I called down and the operator told me, very nicely, ‘That’s just the radiator, hon’. Being an innocent boy from the Midwest,  I said “Oh, thank you.” and went back to sleep."

Jo came to the Piccadilly at age 10 in 1975 with her Dad all the way from Australia.  It was part of what she described as an “epic trip to honor the wishes of my late mother” who had died the previous year.  “It was kind of run down like most of Times Square at that time, but I thought it was the most exciting place in the world.  I adored watching the Winston cigarette guy blow smoke rings from the billboard from our window.”

Kate (speaking with Lisa, the hotel owner’s granddaughter):

“My Dad was the Master Carpenter at the Booth Theatre right across from the hotel for over 40 years.   Since he had to work holidays, we always had Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners at your hotel. We were a family of 8 and we always loved the food, the atmosphere and knew all the wonderful waiters and bartenders !. We had so many fantastic times there and were heartbroken when we found out its fate. To this day I miss the Hotel Piccadilly sooooo much and will never forget our cherished times there.”

Marilyn says:  "My sister was executive housekeeper and I worked in the laundry room on weekends with the nicest bunch of maids and housemen.  And especially the owner, Mr. K, he was so good to my two kids.  Carmen, I miss you and Sammy and Bernice.  Please find me on facebook.”

 I have saved the most touching for the last.  From a French site, I have translated these lines from Maugerie, a testimony to the Piccadilly as well as to a long lost love:

“I have just discovered a book of matches from the Hotel Piccadilly, which brings back a flood of memories.  I was a young French man, visiting New York for the first time in 1974 with Helene, my girl friend, and we spent several nights at this hotel.  It was enormous and old and had seen better days, but it had a soul.

“I retain an immense tenderness in my heart for Helene, who might have become my wife if our lives had not taken different directions … and remembering the Piccadilly today only intensifies my melancholy for a lost love.” 

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Posted by Frank Pleasants at 8:31 AM 4 comments:

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

Ginger Rogers was also mentioned in blog No. 28, "Ginger and Me!" (to access, click on above title).

Your input is welcomed:  hotel-musings@hotmail.fr

Next Friday:  Back to Taormina, introducing Clementina La Floresta