Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Dining at a Love Hotel in the Gilded Age

New York City
ca. 1892


Women were a popular motif on cigar boxes in the late nineteenth century, often depicted as angels, warriors, or voluptuous goddesses. However, labels featuring female nudes were rare, as these cigar boxes were seemingly intended for brothels. The Victorians, known for their duplicity, were adept at concealing their deviations from a strict moral code. Consequently, material evidence of this aspect of their lives is scarce. A case in point is a menu from the Palette, an obscure hotel in New York during the Gilded Age. Catering to upper-class guests leading double lives, the hotel remains shrouded in mystery, as it was never mentioned in contemporary newspapers or magazines.


The Palette Hotel was housed in a double brownstone at 102 West 52nd Street, near Sixth Avenue. Silver plaques with the word Palette were discreetly positioned on both sides of the front door. An 1890 city vice report noted that “only the misguided of the upper ten” frequented the hotel, describing its affluent patrons as “women who, in their homes, churches, and society, hold positions of honor and respect, and men whose loyalty to wife and family is believed to be absolute.”2 Outward appearances held great importance at the time, making it risky to even get to the hotel. Typically, a man and a veiled woman would alight from a hansom cab and dash up the stoop and ring the doorbell—then a new electrical device—whereupon the door would be promptly opened. Inside, the hotel featured small, lavishly furnished dining rooms, though enjoying a private dinner in such a setting was, in itself, a transgression against the strict moral codes of the day.

The menu below, dating from the early 1890s, features a cover illustration of an artist’s palette, coyly alluding to the hotel’s name. The cuisine indicates that its dining room was on par with restaurants like Sherry’s and Delmonico’s, and the price of Champagne hints at the risqué nature of this establishment. At the Palette, Champagne was priced at $4.00 a quart, about fifty cents more than what was charged at other first-class hotels and restaurants.3 Yet, this was still considerably less than the price at some of the city’s elite bordellos, such as “The Studio” at 106 West 50th Street, where Champagne cost $5.00 a bottle.





While the upper-class society no longer need the places like the Palette, love hotels still operate in large cities like New York and Tokyo where the middle class is hindered by high real estate prices and urban crowding.


Notes 
1. My thanks to Richard Zacks, author of Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt’s Doomed Quest to Clean Up Sin-Loving New York, for generously providing the reference material for this essay. 
2. Vices of a Big City: An Expose of Existing Menaces to Church and Home in New York City, The Press, J. E. Clark, publisher, New York, 1890, p.73. 
3. In November 1889, the proprietors of the Hoffman House, the St. James Hotel, the Gilsey Hotel, the Victoria Hotel, the Brunswick Hotel, the Windsor Hotel, and Delmonico’s made a coordinated attempt to raise their prices of imported Champagne from $3.50 to $4.00 a quart. Other first-class hotels in New York, such as the Fifth Avenue and the Astor House, opposed this scheme to raise prices, and it seems to have failed.

2 comments:

Deana Sidney said...

Another great post... I saw a booklet that was given out in NYC that gave quick reviews of the cities' ladies of the evening that was a hoot. I wasn't aware there were restaurants devoted to the fast set too. The menus are fun and the food did look pretty high end... as well as that wine list... isn't it remarkable that most of the champagnes are still around after all these years??

Have a great new years, Henry.

Jan Whitaker said...

Henry, what a find! Looking forward to seeing you at your exhibition's opening on the 9th.