Come Again!

by

Lauren Roberts

It is now known as the Grand Hyatt New  York, but the original, which opened on January 28, 1919, was called the Commodore Hotel. A lovely place, one of the Terminal City inhabitants—a complex of palatial hotels and offices connected to Grand Central Terminal—the Commodore was owned by the New York State Realty and Terminal Company, a division of the larger New York Central Railroad.

The hotel was named after “Commodore” Cornelius Vanderbilt (who founded the Central Railroad System), and whose statue still adorns the driveway next to the hotel even today.

What I like about this little fabric bookmark is that it is a lasting souvenir that represents the genteel graciousness of hotel life during the first half of the twentieth century. Who wouldn’t like being told they were “please to have you as our guest” and to “come again!”? I’d take that over toiletries, however nice, or even the use of a thick bathrobe any day.

So apparently did many guests, though they did not lack for the former either. When the Commodore opened, it offered 2,000 guestrooms and what it termed “the most beautiful lobby in the world,” which was the single largest room at the time with modern low ceilings and a waterfall designed by John B. Smeraldi, known for his mural paintings and furniture designs.

Unfortunately, while information abounds about the Hyatt there is little to be found about the Commodore. There were any number of political and corporate events held there, but one of the most interesting concerned the 1924 New York Auto Show. While there are a lot of untrue stories floating around, the truth, which is quite interesting, can be found in this letter from Michael J. Kollins, a service technician at Dodge Brothers (and later the author of a four-part series of books, Pioneers of the U.S. Automobile Industry) to Chrysler’s Glenn E. White laying out the facts of the show:

1. The 24th National Automobile Show had to be staged at the 258th Field Artillery Armory, because the Grand Central Palace, until then so commodious, was no longer big enough to house the exhibits of 73 motor vehicle manufacturers, and manufacturers of automotive componeennts [sic] and parts. The Armory, in the Bronx, was nine miles from the heart of Manhattan, but on opening night, almost nobody showed up.
2. Chrysler had six Chrysler Six models displayed in space 34 in the Armory, along with the Maxwell exhibit, which also had two Chalmers models. . . .  It is true that Joseph E. Fields, Sales Manager for Chrysler, had arranged with the Commodore Hotel management for the use of the lobby as exhibit space. I believe Chrysler also had six models displayed in the lobby of the Commodore Hotel.
3. The Armory was only 30 minutes by subway train from Times Square, but on opening night, subway wrecks, the first in years, halted traffic out of mid-Manhattan. A blizzard and a sudden drop to sub-zero temperatures made matters worse.
4. So while Samuel Miles, the show manager was wringing his hands and fretting in the Bronx, Walter P. Chrysler was happily parking people into the Commodore Hotel, where he was proudly displaying his Chrysler Car.
5. The Chrysler exhibit along with the cooperation of Mayor Jimmie Walker, and the New York Police Department, made the introduction such a sensation, that during the year of 1924, 19,960 Chrysler cars were sold according to R.L. Polk & Co. records.

The hotel was classic: stone and brickwork in a clean design. It worked to attract not only travelers, both business and pleasure, but local residents to its entertainment, and conventions and other events. A postcard from what appears to be the 1950s (judging by the cars) says:

The unexcelled location of the COMMODORE affords the New York visitor ready access to anything and EVERYTHING of interest and importance in this fabulous city.

Midtown on 42nd Street at Lexington Avenue. Grand Central Terminal is right next door, with a special entrance from the concourse into the Lower Lobby.

Pennsylvania Station is only a few minutes away. Airlines Terminals (both East Side and West Side) are with prompt and easy reach. Airlines Annex, handling ticket sales and information, is diagonally opposite the Commodore.

Just a step from all midtown centers.

On that note, the Commodore ran successfully for decades. It wasn’t until 1967 that the hotel received its first upgrade, which cost $3.4 million. Unfortunately, the refurbishment didn’t really pay off. Even the addition of in-room movies in 172 failed to help. Though the hotel was run by another division at this time, the parent company, now called the Penn Central Transportation Company, was experiencing financial difficulties. On May 11, 1977, it was announced that the Commodore had lost $1.5 million in 1976 and might have to be shuttered.

Some might argue that would have been preferable to what did happen: a young real estate developer named Donald Trump bought it, gutted it and completely transformed it, making over the exterior with reflective glass façade. It also lost its elegant name; today it is the Grand Hyatt New York, merely one in a long list of nicely bland corporate hotels—that probably don’t hand out souvenir bookmarks any more.

Bookmark specifications: Come Again! Hotel Commodore
Dimensions: 4 1/2” x 1 1/2”
Material: Silk
Manufacturer: The Commodore Hotel
Date: Circa 1930s-1940s
Acquired: eBay

Almost since her childhood days of Mother Goose, Lauren has been giving her opinion on books to anyone who will listen. That “talent” eventually took her out of magazine writing and into book reviewing in 2000 for an online review site where she cut her teeth (as well as a few authors). Stints as book editor for her local newspaper and contributing editor to Booklist and Bookmarks magazines has reinforced her belief that she has interesting things to say about books. Lauren shares her home with several significant others including three cats, nearly 1,300 bookmarks and approximately the same number of books that, whether previously read or not, constitute her to-be-read stack. She is a member of the National Books Critics Circle (NBCC) as well as a longtime book design judge for Publishers Marketing Association’s Benjamin Franklin Awards. Contact Lauren.