A Two-Dollar Hamburger Under A Silvery Dome

THE WEYLIN and THE BERKSHIRE, New York City

Viennese postcard circa 1925

      My first real hotel memory springs from a trip to New York in 1954 with my Aunt Frances, her British friend Rose, and Grandmother Pleasants.

 I had just turned twelve, and we took the overnight Silver Star from Southern Pines the day after Christmas.   Frances and Grandmother Pleasants shared one of those enormous double bedrooms (there was usually only one per train), while Rose and I slept in berth beds which looked directly onto the sleeping car corridor like Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe in “Some like it Hot.”  

 

Rose, circa 1955, with Dickie and Mickie

 (Rose, no less an aunt to me and my brothers than Frances, is buried in Aberdeen with the rest of the family.  Her place in the family remains somewhat of an enigma.)

Weylin Hotel (Google)

We stayed at the Weylin at the corner of 54th and Madison.  Built in 1921, the 16-story luxury hotel (unbeknownst then to anyone in our party)  was just about at the end of its life.  It would be converted into an office building in January of 1956.  At any rate,  I remember little about the hotel itself.

   We must have had a two-bedroom suite, with my foldaway bed set up in the living room.  What most sticks in my mind is the room service which Frances ordered for me as soon as we arrived.    I vividly remember the bellboy in his bright green jacket, setting up a special table onto which he reverently placed my late-morning treat.   He then ceremoniously  whisked away the silvery dome, unveiling the most elegant hamburger I could have  ever imagined (and a subject of family conversation for years to follow).

Frances grandly signed the check for a whopping two dollars, representing about ten times the cost of a hamburger back in Aberdeen. 

Today, I frequently have difficulty remembering a film or book from last week.  Yet, I recall in detail what must have been an exhausting Saturday for Frances those many years ago:  morning at FAO Schwartz (the biggest toy store in the world!) and the Empire State Building; lunch at Longchamps with banana split for dessert; matinee at the original Cinerama; and a memorable evening at Radio City Music Hall.  

This Is Cinerama 1954

  

I had made a thorough wish list of which only Coney Island (closed for the winter)  and the Stork Club (!) went unfulfilled (See sidebar:  Dorothy Ann at the Stork Club).

 * * * * * * *

  I didn’t return to New York with Frances again  until 1968, when I was on my way to relocate in Europe.  It’s hard to imagine that only 14 years had elapsed between those two trips. 

Frances with unidentified gentleman, at a Colorado Dude Ranch

The days of innocence had long passed.  Dickie, my younger brother, joined us, and it was a time in our lives of excess and reckless carousing.   Dickie was just beginning, I had been going full throttle for quite awhile, and Frances was a veteran.

Angry young man (photo Walt Howerton)

We all chipped in financially, but Frances paid the lion’s share for another two-bedroom suite, this time at the Berkshire on 52^nd Street.  I remember thinking, naively, this must be exactly the sort of place where one might run into the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

I’ve never stayed there again, but a few years ago I took a stroll through the lobby of what is now the Omni Berkshire, and I could partially re-feel the thrill of the first time at quite such an elegant place. 

The good-time Windsors

SIDEBAR:  Miss VFW 1951 at the Stork Club

The Stork Club 1949

       My wish to go to the Stork Club was not as idiotic as it might appear.  I did read Walter Wintchell’s column, and he was supposed to go there every evening.  Ditto Earl Wilson. 

With Dorothy Ann 1970

 My real connection, however, was my beloved cousin, Dorothy Ann, who had won a national beauty contest in the summer of 1951 which had temporarily thrown her, and by ricochet the rest of the family, into the outer fringes of celebrityism.  This was long before Andy Warhol coined the 15-minutes-of-fame expression, but it was precisely what he was talking about before he said it.

If I tell you the contest was Miss U.S. Veterans of Foreign Wars, you’ll undoubtedly think I am making a big to-do of nothing.  However, to get a sense of the event’s importance, you have to go back into the context of the recently-ended World War and the just-beginning one in Korea.  Not to mention the all pervasive, intoxicating national patriotism of the day.

Dorothy Ann was my favorite cousin, and I spent many weekends with her and her step-mom who was my great-aunt Ruth. 

When she was crowned, the VFW organization staged a full scale military parade down 5^th Avenue, led by Dorothy Ann, sitting on the rear of the back seat of an open-top Cadillac convertible.  Heady stuff, I’d say.

This was nothing compared to the announcement the following day that Dorothy Ann would appear on the CBS television program “Live from the Stork Club,” an early talk show in which the owner circulated among the tables of his illustrious nightclub and paused to chat with the more recognizable patrons. 

Google photo circa 1951

As almost no one in Aberdeen had yet acquired a television set, our family arranged to see the event elsewhere.  I recollect  the house and the street, but not the owners.  I just remember my mother and me and Ethel, our maid, along with various neighbors crowded on the floor of a little living room on Poplar Street watching the fifteen minute program.

Ethel with the twins

I was only eight years old that summer.  But.  I always remembered the Stork Club, and I never forgot the excitement of seeing Sherman Billingsley stopping by Dorothy Ann’s table, however briefly.

Dorothy Ann and her little cousin

  Your input is welcomed:  frank.pleasants@libertysurf.fr

[Photos are mine unless otherwise credited]

Next :  "Room Without Bath ..."

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

Rose was also featured in blog No. 61, "Goodbye, Rose" ; Frances was mentioned in blog No. 51 "A Christmas Gift"  (to access, click on highlighted titles).

57 - The Caldwells Come to Paris

HOTEL LAUMIERE, Paris

An unchanged Parc des Buttes Chaumont, Paris 2013

      When I first settled in Paris I officially lived off the Champs-Elysées, but I worked in the 19^th Arrondisement on the edge of the city in the more village-like ambiance around the Buttes Chaumont Park.

     My office was in the apartment of Jean and Nancy, and as I explained in an earlier musing, I connected with far more people around my work address than on the more impersonal Champs-Elysées.

     Though I was barely making minimum wage, and it was never enough to quite see me through until the end of the month, I --like most all the other single people I knew in those days-- ate all my meals out.  Workdays found me generally at the Laumière, a huge, teeming, dirt-cheap restaurant within the neighborhood’s unique hotel.

Lunchtime at Hotel Laumiere 1970

     It was there that I learned the rudiments of what French food was all about.   The menu changed daily, and I remember that most of the main courses cost three francs.  It’s hard to imagine just what that would be worth today, but at the time it was about a half a dollar.  For that amount, I could choose between stuffed cabbage, beef bourguignon, grilled chicken, cow’s liver, etc.  

     Edith Caldwell had been my second grade teacher, and her son, Frank, a friend back in Aberdeen.  Frank brought his mother on a vacation to Paris in 1971, and I served as guide.

     The Caldwells stayed at the Hotel Moscow, which was ironically located on the rue Leningrad (unless it was the other way around, my memory being a little hazy on those details).

     It was still the cold war, and I recall Edith (who had a strong personality and was not above a bit of provocation) commented with a certain humor that she’d hate to see some of the Aberdeen townspeople’s reaction if they learned the name of her hotel.  The insinuation being, it didn’t always take too much to shock in a small southern town in those days.
 

Edith behatted for the Stoneybrook Races, Southern Pines 1972

     Although I had been in Paris for over a year at the time, my French was still far from accomplished.  I was fiercely motivated, however, and carried a little blue English-French dictionary around with me at all times.   It was unfortunately of limited efficiency, as it was ultra abridged, and the translations sometimes misleading.

     Jean and Nancy, who were wonderful employers and very good people, proposed I bring my friends by for a coffee at their home after lunch at the Laumière.  I was thrilled to be able to share with the Caldwells a glimpse into real Parisian life and to show how well I was integrating into the French world.  

Jean and Nancy Gauthier, rue Cavendish 1971

     Before arriving with my guests, I looked up “school teacher”, so as to introduce Edith in correct French.     The normal translation for a small child’s teacher is “maitresse d’école” or school mistress.  Only my little dictionary just left it at “maitresse"!

     A very young child just might call his teacher “Mistress”, but never, never would a grown man present a much older lady as I did: 

     “Nancy, je vous présente ma maitresse.”    

     Nancy was a professor at the Sorbonne and a no-nonsense lady.  She didn’t show any surprise, just smiled warmly, shook Edith’s hand, and without missing a beat said discreetly in French to me, “Oh, most assuredly not!”

     I immediately blushed with the realization of my faux pas, but the Caldwells were undoubtedly  never the wiser to what extent my French was so lamentably lacking.

Me (about a year away from a haircut) with Edith at the Buttes-Chaumont 1971

 

SIDEBAR:  Back to the second grade with Edith and Little Polly

Aberdeen School before the fire (photo by E.S. Eddy)

     I have particularly vivid memories of Edith Caldwell as a school teacher, because it was at the beginning of my second grade in 1949 that the Aberdeen Elementary School burned to the ground.

      It was in the dead of night, so there were no casualties.  My father was a volunteer fireman, and I remember waiting for him to return, standing outside our home with other neighborhood children at three in the morning watching the sky lit up from the blaze on the other side of town.

       Little Polly, who was also in Edith's class that year, had a much better view, as she lived just around the corner from the schoolhouse.
  

Edith at school 1950

 

Little Polly

     After the fire, Edith's second grade settled into an annex to the Baptist Church on Main Street until a new school could be constructed a year later.

     I sat on the front row next to Little Polly, and the clearest memory I have today of Edith's class is of Polly and me singing at the top of our lungs, "Frère Jacques."

     I doubt if I even realized it was French at the time, and it certainly  was not until about the time of Edith and Frank's Paris visit twenty years later that I actually began to understand the words. 

 

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

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

"Little Polly" and Aberdeen were also mentioned in blog No. 26 "Babe Ruth's 60th Home Run"   (to access, click on title).

49 - Thanksgiving: Ruth and Dickie... and more about Mother

THE MILLENNIUM BILTMORE, Los Angeles

Ruth, circa 1932

    The longer I live away from the States, the less resonance I feel with Thanksgiving.  It is such a particularly American holiday, with all of its food and family implications, that when you are out of the context as I have been, living abroad these past 45 years, it is easy to get out of the habit, if not entirely out of the spirit.

Still, I do retain an early lifetime of memories associated with Thanksgiving family meals.   My Aunt Ruth could often be counted on to join us for the holiday spread, particularly after her own children had left home.   I remember how supportive she was of Dickie when he started shining as a cook.

Chef Dickie, starting out at a hash house

  Mother had a real knack for baking cakes, but for much of the rest, she was just so-so.   We liked her food just fine, that is after all what comfort food is all about; but when Dickie came along, that was something else!   

By the time Dickie reached twelve, he was already showing signs of a special talent.  Mother welcomed his enthusiastic participation in the preparation of holiday meals, to the point of gradually pretty well turning the kitchen over to him.  She sometimes had difficulty, however, in totally conceding the credit.

Ruth, Mother’s aunt, had reared her during most of her high school years and afterwards.  She was only ten years older, and although somewhere between sister and mother for her, was still a respected figure of authority.   A career school teacher and known as a stern disciplinarian, she was for years tagged by students as "The Blade."  To describe her as outspoken would be an understatement; she had exceedingly strong viewpoints on most matters.

Mother and her aunt Ruth(r) in the late 1930's

To my brothers and me, Ruth was another grandmother and a special Auntie Mame.  We welcomed her non-conformist ways, compared with the more traditional Pleasants side of the family.  I spent many weekends with her in Southern Pines, and opening tins of pork and beans at any hour of the day or eating breakfast in mid-afternoon was then a special treat.

She knew Mother better than most, and she wasn’t apt to let her get away with too much.  I remember one Thanksgiving when Dickie was just coming into his own, and he outdid himself with a feast of traditional plates to which he added his personal touch to make each dish special –sweet potato “soufflé” (at least that is what we called it in Aberdeen), asparagus casserole, creamed carrots, wonderful coconut cake (though in that department, Mother’s was just as good), and of course the pièce de résistance, butterball turkey with good old Southern-style sage and cornbread stuffing.  

Ruth with the ubiquitous Camel cigarette

 Mother was in a bad humor that year, I certainly don’t remember why, and Ruth’s repeated compliments to Dickie were not easing the atmosphere. 

“This is absolutely the best Thanksgiving turkey I have EVER tasted,” said Ruth to Dickie.  “Where in the WORLD did you learn to cook like that?  Why, you could open your own restaurant.” 



Dickie about that time ...

Mother tried to intercept in order to minimize.  In her very Southern manner, she said:  “Yes, he has certainly been a big little helper.” 


I remember Ruth’s reply, because she had this larger-than-life way of punctuating her ideas, of which I have a clear mental video, even today.   

She could be very argumentative, and had a tendency to take over conversations and get really passionate about whatever she was talking about, frequently jabbing her cigarette in the direction of her interlocutor for emphasis.  She was a perpetual crusader against whatever she saw as injustice, and on this Thanksgiving she definitely saw that my brother was not getting his rightful share of the credit: 

Mother a few years later

“Help?  What ARE you talking about?  Did you say Help?  Why, it looks to me like Dickie has done every single thing!"  I can still hear her throaty, gravelly cigarette voice.  "Every single, solitary thing, and it is DE-LI-CIOUS!  All I can say is, bravo, Dickie!”  

Mother would rarely declare defeat, but with Ruth, she sometimes realized that to declench further argument would be counterproductive, and I recall her ultimately shaking her head in resignation, in much the way today one might say, “Whatever!” 

Ruth with Mickie (left) and Dickie, Aberdeen 1957

The Biltmore Hotel ... back to Hollywood's Golden Age

1937 Academy Awards ceremony in the Biltmore's Crystal Ballroom 

     Brenda and I found ourselves in Los Angeles a few years ago on Thanksgiving.  We were taking a boat from San Diego which took us around part of Mexico and Guatemala, through the Panama Canal, a bit of Colombia, and on to the East Coast.

We spent a couple of days beforehand at the old Biltmore (now The Millennium Biltmore) in downtown L.A.   No longer quite the exquisite hotel of the stars it may have once been, it has nevertheless been remarkably well kept up, and in recent years increasingly dusted off and uplifted.  



Our spacious room at the Millenium Biltmore, November 2010

The largest hotel west of Chicago when it opened in 1923, there are still an awful lot of rooms to fill; and that means some tempting prices, particularly at off-season moments.

Contrary to what some might think, Thanksgiving and Christmas can be very off-seasonal.  In America there are probably no days in the year when more people go back home, wherever that might be, and that leaves plenty of hotel rooms vacant.

A typically art-déco nook in the Biltmore's bar

  So the Millennium Biltmore had too good a price to pass up, and we decided to stay there before embarking on the Holland America cruise.  Also, they advertised an enticing Thanksgiving meal which was billed as “the famous L.A. bountiful buffet brunch not to be missed!”     

For an old time movie buff like myself, the primary appeal of the Biltmore was its historic connection with the Academy Awards.  It was here in the hotel’s Crystal Ballroom that some of the iconic moments of the the Oscar’s history occurred in the late 1930’s and 1940’s.

The banquet hall where the event took place is still there, intact and in excellent condition.  It wasn’t open for visiting the week we were there (as it was being prepared for some event, probably a wedding reception), but we sneaked in without difficulty.

The Film Academy was in fact founded in 1927 at a luncheon in the Biltmore’s ballroom.  All the heads of studio were represented, and it is said that MGM art director Cedric Gibbons scribbled his design for the Oscar statuette on a linen hotel napkin.

The ornate ballroom is constructed a little like an opera house, with grand, carved columns and Austrian-crystal chandeliers.  The second-story balconies which surround the circular room offer the best viewing point, and the room still boasts a hand-painted 30-foot ceiling. 

As for the Thanksgiving feast, this was our only disappointment.  The food was about as uninspired as you could ever imagine, though the restaurant was packed with enthusiastic looking diners, both tourists and Angelinos.   We didn’t really care; there would be other, better Thanksgiving meals.  

Who knows?  Maybe even one of these days another prepared by Dickie.

Quite a bit of its past grandeur still on show (note ceiling)

Your input is welcomed:  frank.pleasants@libertysurf.fr

[Photos are mine, unless otherwise credited]

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

"Mother" is also featured in blog No. 46, "Grandmother Vivian, Doc and the Others" and No. 51, "A Christmas Gift ... the little red lamp"; Aunt Ruth was mentioned in the sidebar to blog No. 4, "Miss VFW 1951 at the Stork Club"   (to access, click on highlighted titles).