Chicago S Grand Hotels

Architecturally imposing, historically rich, and socially important, Chicago's magnificent grand hotels have fascinated generations of Chicagoans and have pleased generations of guests. The Palmer House Hilton, The Drake, and The Hilton Chicago have come to represent a collective formal living room for Chicago, where the city's most important visitors are accommodated, entertained, and made aware of the grandeur and sophistication of their host's hometown. They were built to inspire awe--and still do for anyone fortunate enough to find themselves in the lobby of The Palmer House Hilton, The Palm Court of The Drake, or the Grand Ballroom of The Hilton Chicago. Many of the most famous locales in these classic structures have been transformed or have disappeared altogether due to changing times. Gone, for example, is The Hilton Chicago's famous rooftop miniature golf course and Boulevard Room supper club, complete with its ice shows. Gone, too, is The Drake's legendary supper club, the Camellia House. While the Empire Room of The Palmer House Hilton continues to exist as an function room, it no longer reverberates with the sound of Liberace's piano or Jimmy Durante's vocals, as it did when it was the city's premier entertainment facility. Chicago's Grand Hotels chronicles over 100 years of Chicago hotel history through vivid photographs and memorabilia from the archives of The Palmer House Hilton, The Drake, and The Hilton Chicago. It tells the compelling story of the visionary architects and hoteliers who brought these hotels to life and made them structural testaments to the warmth of midwestern hospitality.

Presents a pictorial history of Chicago's grand hotels, including the Palmer House, the Drake, and the Conrad Hilton Hotel.

From their rise in the early 19th century, Chicagos hotels were bustling centers of city life. The Great Fire in October 1871 destroyed all of that. But it also gave the city an opportunity to begin again with a fresh palette of architectural ideas. By the Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893, Chicago had built over 1,400 hotels and lodging houses, establishing it as the nations prime destination for business, conventions, and tourism. Early Chicago Hotels presents more than 200 postcards, inviting the reader to tour the stunning exterior and dazzling interior designs of Chicagos architects. The citys fi rst-class hotels, resorts, and lesser-known second-class hotelsmany of which are long goneare featured. These early hotels set the stage for the great palace hotels of the 1920s. From their rise in the early 19th century, Chicagos hotels were bustling centers of city life. The Great Fire in October 1871 destroyed all of that. But it also gave the city an opportunity to begin again with a fresh palette of architectural ideas. By the Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893, Chicago had built over 1,400 hotels and lodging houses, establishing it as the nations prime destination for business, conventions, and tourism. Early Chicago Hotels presents more than 200 postcards, inviting the reader to tour the stunning exterior and dazzling interior designs of Chicagos architects. The citys fi rst-class hotels, resorts, and lesser-known second-class hotelsmany of which are long goneare featured. These early hotels set the stage for the great palace hotels of the 1920s.

This is a book for lovers of remarkable hotels. Whether you are a long-term luxury hotel addict, or just fantasising about a visit to one of the world's great hotels, this book is for you. This book features stories about great, grand and famous hotels sourced from history, legend and the occasional snippet of gossip. Take a peek inside and discover a treasure trove of famous or forgotten anecdotes. See the dramas unfold in lobbies, dining rooms, bars and ballrooms, or behind the closed doors of guest rooms and Presidential Suites. Marvel at those who made these hotels what they are: daring financiers, visionary owners, inventive architects, cutting-edge designers, devoted hoteliers and renowned chefs. Remember the great, grand and famous celebrity guests and meet the new breed of visionaries who are creating the great hotels of the future. Visit historic hotels, including The Ritz, Paris; the Waldorf-Astoria, New York; the Beverly Hills Hotel, Los Angeles; the Savoy, London; the Hassler, Rome; The Peninsula, Hong Kong; Raffles, Singapore; Mena House, Cairo; Taj Lake Palace, Udaipur; Chateau Lake Louise, Alberta; the Cipriani, Danieli and Gritti Palace, Venice; Reid's Palace, Madeira; and the Baur au Lac, Zurich, alongside modern masterpieces such as The Burj al Arab, Icehotel and other futuristic hotels. The book is intended to give the traveller a better understanding of, and greater insight into, the hotels they admire and love. It is also a reference book for the passionate hotel professional and provides knowledge for young hoteliers, helping them to understand the history and the development of their industry. Combining four years of research, assisted by many students in various hotel schools around the world, and with contributions by six travel writers, it is hoped this book will entice more people to seek out the world's great, grand and famous hotels, and to stay in them for an unforgettable experience, not just as a place to spend the night.

From its beginnings as the humble inn, the hotel has undergone enormous changes over the centuries. Elaine Denby charts the development of the Grand Hotel and how it has kept pace with technological innovations.

This book brings into dramatic relief the dilemma, or devil's bargain, that faced the black press in first building up black baseball, then crusading for the sport's integration and, as a result of that largely successful campaign, ultimately encouraging and even ensuring the demise of those same black leagues. Taking a thematic approach, this book focuses each of its chapters on a singular event or phenomenon from and for each decade of the period covered, a period that spans the roughly four decades of the black leagues' existence. Thus, the book drills down on a handful of representative events and phenomena to present a history of the black press and black baseball. Themes include the many ways team owners and the weekly newspapers' editors and writers worked in concert to build up the leagues, the paired fortunes of black players and black writers, the desperation to save the Negro leagues when it became clear integration threatened their survival, and finally the black press’s response to the residues of baseball's decades of segregation.