February 20, 2025 • 59 mins
We continue celebrating the Mayflower Hotel's centennial with part 2 of her incredible history. This episode takes us on a mid 20th century roller coaster ride, including the New Deal, World War II, and the Truman and Eisenhower presidencies. We also continue our interview with Katherine Orr of Historic Hotels of America.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hotel history is created for adult audiences.
(00:03):
Content may not be suitable for all listeners.
Discretion is advised.
You're listening to Hotel History.
We take you with us through the sordid history and scandals
of some of the world's most famous and infamous hotels.
I'm D'Etta
And I'm Yael.
Let's get started.
(00:23):
We are back with part two of our series on the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC, which is currently celebrating its centennial.
So last time we left off in the 1930s, and I wanted to kind of revisit that and touch a little bit more on FDR and the New Deal years as they unfolded in Washington.
(00:47):
Roosevelt's New Deal plan re-energized Washington.
He created 30,000 new government jobs, many of which ended up being filled by young people fresh out of university who energized the city and even changed the landscape of the Mayflower's dining establishments.
Now, instead of seeing debutantes in their couture gowns at the Palm Court, it was full of government girls who were called G-girls and young men newly employed by all of these new agencies.
(01:21):
So a little bit more of a middle class vibe starting to infiltrate this formerly a percussed society establishment.
And all of this activity revitalized the hotel industry, which before, because of the Depression, had floor after floor of empty rooms just like hotels everywhere else in the country.
(01:45):
But now they were overflowing with guests.
The Mayflower had to convert 47 servants quarters into guest rooms to accommodate everybody.
And part of this overload was due to industry representatives coming into Washington to participate in these deliberations of the National Industrial Recovery Act.
This act required economic codes for every major industry in the country.
(02:09):
So the Mayflower was booked for both formal Recovery Act hearings and also just informal gatherings for all of these industry leaders to discuss.
And one of the most important held there was in November 1934 by the Committee on Economic Security to discuss the Social Security Program.
200 experts on social problems were invited and William Green, President of the American Federation of Labor, said in a speech that it was possibly the most important economic conference ever held in America.
(02:42):
Wow, that's crazy that all of that happened within the Mayflower.
I know.
That's like a very pivotal point in American history.
It's definitely in terms of the economy.
Yes.
He was right.
I think he was right.
Just the aftermath of the Depression is so serious.
(03:07):
And then, you know, to have that your hotel as the as ground zero of like recovering.
Yeah.
And then the worst economic crisis and it's it is it in history or in modern history?
Yeah, in America's history.
In America's history.
Yeah.
So that's that's really interesting.
Amidst all the government officials, celebrities also started visiting the Mayflower both as guests and performers.
(03:34):
Apparently, when Jean Harlow stayed there, she liked to see behind the scenes.
She went into the kitchen at the Carvery to watch the chef and at the bar, she told the bartender that the perfect martini needed a dash of bitters.
She spent a few hours mastering the switchboard, putting orders in through to room service and making wake up calls.
(03:55):
So she she just was like, I'm going to do everything kind of, you know what?
I like I like that because I feel like I'm the same way.
I would do the same thing.
She she wants to know all the parts and not just I feel like also on film, she on sets or something.
She would have done that.
Like, what is the directing and the lighting and then this and the costumes?
Like, I want to know all of this, how everything works.
(04:17):
And also, this is probably a great photo op.
Like, I'm sure they took really cute photos of her at the switchboard.
Yeah. Yeah.
Also, imagine getting woken up by Jean Harlow in the 1920s or whatever.
No one would ever believe you.
No, I swear to God, Jean Harlow called my hotel room.
(04:38):
How did she sound?
Do we know how she sounded?
Yeah, wasn't she didn't she have that like come up and see me sometime?
Wasn't that Jean Harlow?
No, that was Mae West.
Mae West.
Would you be shocked if I put on something more comfortable?
The way she spoke would have been I feel like you would have known it was her in the morning.
(05:04):
In October 1941, Hildegard performed at the annual Orchids and Champagne Party,
which kicked off the fall social season in D.C.
I got to say something.
One, that party sounds awesome.
Two, did Hildegard like perform everywhere?
Yes, apparently.
I love how many parallels there are between the Plaza and the Mayflower because she's everywhere.
(05:27):
Yeah, but no one's heard of her outside of like historian things.
She was such a big deal back then.
What happened to her?
I think she just retired.
But it's very interesting.
She was really like she had her moment back in the 40s.
Yeah, like 40s through 60s because I think she was still performing at the Persian Room at the Plaza until it closed.
(05:53):
Yeah, I think that just since she was a cabaret singer and as cabaret faded away, she just retired.
Good for her.
I mean, she had a great life.
The day after the December 7th, 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Mayflower staff mobilized its Civil Defense Organization,
(06:19):
which was created to help the hotel protect guests during an air raid.
It only took a week for the staff to cover the windows and lobby doors with lightproof blinds and black out the skylights.
Each floor of the hotel had two air raid sirens and a first aid station, and the barbershop was used to stock hospital supplies.
The roof was turned into a lookout station with telephones to report plane sightings and stocked with firefighting equipment.
(06:43):
If you've listened to any of our big episodes that include World War II, you know we love a hotel, a rooftop plane sighting station.
Oh, yeah. And then they only give you a little hat to protect yourself from a bomb.
Many staff members became certified in first aid and also took advanced training.
(07:07):
They learned how to turn bedspreads, blankets, sheets, mattresses, and box springs into stretchers,
how to make bandages out of tablecloths and napkins, how to use brooms for splints, and how to transport the injured using tables and chairs.
The Mayflower even had a room set up for volunteers to donate blood.
They were not messing around.
(07:28):
No, they really have been using everything they got.
Short of turning the Mayflower into an army base, it sounds like.
The Mayflower also sponsored volunteer recruitment campaigns in the lobby, sent books to the armed services, and put patriotic messages on its billboards.
It sent furniture to the Kiwanis military camp in Hawaii, and displayed commemorative plaques in the lobby with the names of employees who enlisted in the military.
(07:54):
But guests were required to do their part too.
Rooms were equipped with blue light bulbs, which are less visible from the air, and instructions for air raids.
The blackout arrangements allowed guests to continue dining and dancing in the hotel as usual.
The Mayflower held a blackout drill, Washington, D.C.'s first, in February of 1942.
After the siren wailed, the hotel seemed to vanish from Connecticut Avenue.
(08:19):
The Mayflower's Log, which is a monthly magazine that the Mayflower used to put out, described it as looking like an empty office building with no indication that hundreds of guests were inside going about their business, dining, dancing, and strolling down the promenade.
This meant they blacked out the skylights in the lobby too.
They also hid the chandeliers in the basement so they wouldn't get ruined in case the city was bombed, but they actually forgot where they put them.
(08:44):
And years later in the 1950s, they found the chandeliers and were able to restore them.
That's crazy that they... do you imagine doing that now? A blackout raid?
Oh my god, no. And they mobilized all of this stuff so quickly.
We entered the war in December of 41 and February of 42, they're already conducting these drills.
(09:09):
I know, wow.
Another wartime amenity the Mayflower provided was the Interim Club.
Due to wartime hotel room shortages, sometimes people arrived early and their rooms were still being used by the previous guests.
The Interim Club provided closets, dressing rooms, telephone booths, and two attendants for guests to use while they waited for their room to be ready.
(09:33):
Here they could freshen up, change their clothes, do paperwork, and make and receive phone calls, all at no charge.
So they used every single part of the hotel.
And it's like, oh sorry, here's a closet.
I can't imagine them doing that now unless you have a wedding. I feel like weddings, they kind of do that.
(09:56):
The Mayflower held many benefits for the war effort throughout World War II.
In September 1941, they hosted Retailers for Defense Week, which was a week-long nationwide event where retailers partnered with the U.S. government to sell defense stamps.
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was active in promoting the sale of defense stamps and saving and war bonds.
(10:18):
So she officially opened Retailers for Defense Week by selling a defense stamp at the Mayflower to the executive director of the Supply, Priorities, and Allocations Board.
The Mayflower was one of 6,000 hotels across the country to sell them.
Defense stamps were issued to help fund the war and were meant to be affordable for common citizens.
(10:39):
They came in denominations of 10 cents, 25 cents, 50 cents, a dollar, and five dollars.
And once you filled a book with stamps, you could trade it for a treasury bond, which would mature in 10 years.
During the Retailers for Defense Week, stores across the nation heavily advertised and sold defense stamps,
offered education about them, had patriotic decorations and window displays, and even held a nationwide contest to choose Mrs. Typical Customer of 1942.
(11:09):
I love this so much.
The winner was Mrs. Clarence C. Cox of Greensville, South Carolina, who won with her no-nonsense mantra of, Sane, not panicky buying.
What?
They're like, how do we get the women involved in this?
I know. Let's have a contest.
We're so competitive.
(11:30):
Let's just rehash this.
I'm so curious about how the world, or specifically how America was run back then, because we don't do that for the war effort.
We just pay taxes.
I'm kind of impressed that it was so communal.
And like, let's all do our part or whatever.
(11:52):
I mean, obviously, we haven't had a war like World War II, but it's so interesting that they were like, we really need all this money, so we're going to make everything available.
Because now it's like, come to our benefit.
It's $1,500 for a seat.
And I'm like, no, sir, no one normal can afford a $1,500 benefit seat.
I don't care what.
(12:13):
But I can definitely give you $5 for this.
I can trade in for a bond, totally.
Also, I would just like to point out that this started in September of 1941, and the US did not enter the war until December of 1941.
But this to me shows that even though the US was still technically being isolationist, that they already knew that we were going to have to enter the war.
(12:41):
I think they definitely were already making plans to enter.
And they were like, well, let's go ahead and get some money because we're definitely going to war, even if because I know they did know that Japan was planning to attack us and they just didn't care or win.
And so I think that they were trying to go ahead and preemptively start raising some money.
Well, if Eleanor Roosevelt was already involved in this, she must have.
(13:05):
I mean, she would have known.
So now back to Mrs. Typical Customer.
So the women who entered this contest had to write a little essay on how to be basically a responsible customer during and had a responsible patriotic customer during this time.
(13:28):
And so, yeah, she won because she was saying we need to be, you know, we all need.
She was based. She would have been appalled by how people acted during covid because she was basically like, hey, we know that things might get rationed.
We know things might run out, but nobody needs to panic and we just need to buy as much as we need when we need it and make sure there's enough for to go around and for them to use for the military.
(13:53):
And so, yeah, she would have lost her mind that people buying the grocery store out of toilet paper.
But we didn't have rations. You know how like they had tickets, like little ration pieces where you went to the store and you can only buy like three eggs.
Yeah, like that. But there was a reason they were like, you don't trust you.
(14:16):
No, because at this point we hadn't been rationed yet. I don't think rations actually started until we officially entered the war.
They also held USO shows in the grand ballroom that were usually standing room only. They would feature entertainers like Red Stelton and Marlene Dietrich.
Gene Kelly hosted a war bond benefit also held in the ballroom. This was really common back then. All these celebrities like gathered and did this. They traveled to like entertain the soldiers.
(14:48):
And I guess it worked because I mean, those were huge celebrities. Yeah. The Mayflower's kitchens felt the squeeze during the war because of course everything was rationed like we mentioned.
But the Mayflower, unlike the Savoy from what I remember, didn't get any supplies off the black market and stuck to legitimate suppliers.
(15:10):
Because of that, they had to develop some original dishes with inventive substitutions like one of the substitutions they mentioned was using black olives in place of truffles, which gross.
Staffing was another problem, as many of the young and able bodied men had gone off to war, they had to hire all new workers who may or may not have any skills related to the job they were applying for.
(15:40):
For example, the position of night auditor saw applicants, including a photographer and in Balmer, a machinist's helper and inventor, a furrier and an electrician and the electrician got the job.
Private cars and fuel were also scarce at the time. So if any employees had a car, the general manager encouraged them to give rides to people headed in the direction of the hotel.
(16:06):
So the staff put printed signs on their windshields that said destination, the Mayflower, want a ride?
Oh, so environmentally friendly.
No, apparently that the buses and trains were extremely packed during this time because of how hard it was to have a car or fuel the car if you had one.
(16:32):
Another staffing issue was caused by the Justice Department, which banned German, Italian and Japanese nationals from working at any hotels.
The Mayflower complied and had to fire 25 waiters. They also, we mentioned this last time, but I got a little bit more information on it.
They also put cards on each table in the restaurant that reminded patrons, because tons of government officials come there, not to talk about sensitive war issues at dinner.
(17:01):
The cards actually featured a cartoon of Hitler with huge pointed ears that said, go on and talk. I'm all ears.
Whoa, straight to the point.
Wow. Housing also became so scarce in Washington during the war that a one room apartment that had gone for $55 a month in 1940 cost $625 a month in 1942.
(17:34):
That's it. That's a lot of money. Holy crap. My mom in the 70s paid like 200 bucks for an apartment in Manhattan, a month.
So I can't imagine what this, how much that was in 1940. So Washington hotels saw the volumes of their rooms soar, of course, but the Mayflower's general manager at the time, CJ Mack, made sure the hotel rooms were given principally to those guests deemed vital to the war effort.
(18:01):
So apparently people would come in and like try to bribe the front desk to give them rooms and the Mayflower was like, no, we're not.
If the government said you were important, you got to keep your room there indefinitely. But if you weren't important to the war effort, then the hotel enforced a five day limit.
(18:22):
Wow. So they were rationing everything.
During this time Winston Churchill became a familiar guest, the banquet manager at the time recalled serving him at formal dinners. And when it was time for coffee, Churchill requested a cup filled with brandy instead.
That sounds like him. After he became prime minister, he attended a state dinner with Franklin D Roosevelt in the Chinese room, directly under the dome.
(18:48):
So, if anyone.
Most people don't know the Chinese room at all.
But I guess it's like, as it says, there's a dome shaped ceiling. The story goes after dessert was served, Churchill whispered a lewd joke in a friend's ear. But because of the acoustic effect of the dome, everyone at the table heard it, including President Roosevelt, who was not amused.
(19:14):
And apparently the ladies at the table were like, well, I never clutching their pearls.
Yeah.
Nobody knows if the story is true. But I just think he probably said a lewd joke and everyone was like, Oh my god, I think he didn't whisper it. I think he fully said it to the table and later they were like, Oh no, he, he whispered it and just people overheard.
(19:44):
Okay, now we are at one of the most interesting I think stories that has happened at the Mayflower. So while the Mayflower was full of heads of state during the war, like Churchill and Charles de Gaulle, celebrities performing for the USO military officials, it was also
full of spies that the kitchen staff was 100% correct in putting those cards on the tables telling people to shut up, because 100% spies in the Mayflower.
(20:13):
So, in 1923, a German national named George Dash entered the United States illegally through the port of Philadelphia as a stowaway.
Then he stayed in New York City. In 1927 he enlisted as a private in the US Army Air Corps, and was assigned to Honolulu. But after a year he bought himself out and received an honorable discharge.
(20:35):
He then worked as a waiter in San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles and came back to New York. In 1930 he married Rosemary Gill, or Guilla, Guilla, an American citizen.
Dash re-enlisted in the US Army in 1936 and was stationed at Fort Ontario in Oswego, New York. While serving, he married Charlotte Holliday in March of 1936. He used the alias George Henry Aldash, because that's so different from George Dash, to hide his big knee, because yeah, he never bothered to divorce Rose that he had married back in 1930.
(21:11):
Oh God.
So he and Charlotte lived at the home of her father, Jay Holliday, in Oswego, while he served at Fort Ontario. They had a son, Howard, and sometime in 1938, Dash left the army, abandoned his wife, quote unquote, wife, and their son, and returned to Germany.
Back in Germany, Dash and seven others were trained for espionage activities in a school run by the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, the German High Command, on an estate at Quinn's Lake near Berlin.
(21:44):
They received three weeks of intensive sabotage training and were instructed in the manufacture and use of explosives, explosives, incendiary material, and various forms of mechanical, chemical, and electrical delayed timing devices. Damn, so bombs. Just say bomb.
Yeah.
Considerable time was spent developing the false background histories they were to use back in the US. They were encouraged to converse in English and to read American newspapers and magazines.
(22:15):
On May 26, 1942, Dash and his team, Ernest Peter Berger, Henrich Harmhank, and Richard Currin, I don't care, that's not how you pronounce their names, but whatever, left by submarine from Laurent, France. They landed on Long Island, New York, shortly after midnight on the 12th of June.
(22:37):
They were wearing German Navy uniforms to avoid being shot at as spies if they were captured during the landing. Once they were ashore, they changed into civilian clothes and buried their uniforms and other equipment.
Early that morning, John C. Cullen, a Coast Guard's Guardsman in New York spotted Dash and the three others posing as fishermen on a raft off the coast of Long Island. He saw they were armed and also noticed a submerged submarine.
(23:03):
Not very subtle, guys. The men gave him money to keep quiet. Increasingly alarmed, he took the bribe but alerted his superior. Smart man. He's like, sure. He's like, oh yeah, I won't tell a soul. You give me that money first.
By the time an armed patrol could reach the site, the four Germans had taken the Long Island Railroad train from the station into Manhattan, where they checked into a hotel. A search of the beach revealed concealed explosives, timers, blasting caps and bombs, and cigarettes in their uniforms.
(23:37):
President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the FBI were immediately alerted and the FBI conducted a massive manhunt. All information was kept secret to avoid public panic and to prevent the spies from knowing that they have been discovered.
However, the FBI did not know exactly where the Germans were going. I don't think they knew where they were going.
It does not sound like I know. They said that they got extensive training, but I don't think that they got extensive training.
(24:05):
So, Dash was unhappy with the Nazi regime. He eventually talked to one of his compatriots, a naturalized American citizen that we mentioned before, Ernst Peter Berger. That name doesn't sound real and I can't take it seriously.
About defecting to the United States. Their plan was to surrender immediately to the FBI. Dash ordered Berger to stay and keep an eye on the other German agents. On June 15th, Dash called the FBI office in New York from a payphone on the Upper West Side.
(24:36):
The FBI agent did not believe his story, so Dash hung up and took a train to Washington DC four days later and checked in at the Mayflower Hotel and room 351. He then went to the FBI headquarters asking to speak to J. Edgar Hoover, who was the director of the FBI.
Dash tried to tell the truth to the FBI officials, but they did not believe his story, even though they're looking for these guys. They're like, no, it's not you.
(25:01):
While Dash was at the headquarters, the FBI sent agents to his hotel room where they found $82,000 in cash.
Okay.
They could have used some of that money to bribe the Coast Guard better than what they did.
They just sound...
I mean, I've never been a spy, so I can't speak to the intricacies of the industry, but...
(25:27):
I feel like you would be a better spy than that.
Oh, we should also mention in the Mayflower Hotel to this day, there's a little plaque outside of room 351 that talks about this.
It shows the story. So you could stay there. We couldn't go in actually when we went because there was a guest in the room, so that was a bummer.
Yeah.
(25:48):
Dash was arrested and interrogated for eight days. He disclosed the locations of the other men in the sabotage operation, including Berger. He revealed that the goals of the sabotage program had been to disrupt war industries and launch a wave of terror by planting explosives in railway stations, department stores, and public places.
So, terrorism.
(26:10):
Assholes. Armed with the information Dash provided, the FBI arrested Berger and the six other German agents within the following week. The FBI withheld the true circumstances of their arrest prior to the trial of the eight men, including the fact that they did not actually consummate their plans of sabotage.
Well, I have to say, did this...
(26:33):
Horrible spies.
Terrible.
Like, really bad. Oh, so I gotta say, I'm confused by this Dash guy.
German comes here, marries two girls, goes back to Germany, is not happy with the Nazi regime, but then still agrees to come and spy does a bad job.
(26:56):
And then sells out the other spies.
And a complex individual we're dealing with here.
Dash, Berger, and six others were tried by a military commission appointed by President Roosevelt on July 8, 1942.
The eight were convicted of sabotage and sentenced to death.
(27:17):
May Edgar Hoover and Attorney General Biddle appealed to President Roosevelt, who commuted the sentence to life imprisonment for Berger and 30 years for Dash. The others were executed in the electric chair in Washington DC, in jail in Washington DC on August 8, 1942.
I have a question.
(27:38):
Why? It sounded like Dash and Berger were the main guys.
I think they're, I don't think they were the main guys. I think they are only seeming like the main guys because they're the ones who decided to defect and turn themselves in.
Oh, okay, I see they had probably an agreement.
Yeah, because at first, so J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI people did not bother to tell the president or the military commission that they actually turned themselves in, they made it seem like they uncovered them.
(28:15):
And so that's why at first they were all eight sentenced to death. And then I guess, Hoover and or somebody else finally was like oh well yeah actually I guess you could go lighter on those two because they like turned themselves in and weren't going to go through with it.
In 1948, President Harry S Truman had both Berger and Dash released and deported to the American Occupation Zone in Germany. They were not welcomed back in Germany because they were regarded as traders who had caused the death of their comrades.
(28:49):
Tough spot to be in.
Dash's second wife Charlotte Aldash learned his real identity, only in 1942 when he turned himself in a dash his last communication with Charlotte and his son Howard was via a lawyer and military officer in 1955.
At that time, Dash was trying to gain entry back into the United States, but it was denied by J. Edgar Hoover.
(29:15):
Yeah, yeah.
Like, uh, no sir.
I can't come back here.
Although they had been promised pardons by Hoover and exchange for their cooperation, both men, meaning Berger and dash died without ever receiving them. Dash wrote an account of his involvement with what came to be known as Operation pastorious called eight spies against
(29:42):
America. He died in 1991 at the age of 89 and Ludwig Schaffen.
Was he in prison in Germany.
No, I don't believe so. I think he just was hated.
Wow.
Interesting, interesting man. Yeah, at that point I imagine as Germany was rebuilding they probably had other things to think about other than people who defected from the Nazis. So, yeah, that's true.
(30:18):
An important act for veterans occurred at the Mayflower in room 570 from December 15 to 31st 1943, the American Legion met to draft the servicemen's readjustment act of 1944.
Harry Colmery wrote a draft of the act, which we know as the GI Bill on Hotel Letterhead. The legislation was intended to assist returning military members reintegrate in society. Once it passed the bill helped veterans to pay for college or purchase a home once they returned from service.
(30:51):
Again, a really important thing happened at the Mayflower. Like, Whoa.
Yeah, like my grandfather went to college because of the GI Bill.
Yeah, another another important marker of American politics happening in the Mayflower.
It just doesn't stop the legacy of this hotel is is incredible.
(31:17):
Conrad Hilton bought a controlling share of the Mayflower in December 1946 for $2.6 million, making it the 14th hotel owned by the Hilton Corporation. This is I think owned every hotel in America at the time, at some point.
And at some point the government agreed.
Yeah.
(31:38):
Some of the Mayflower stockholders challenged the sale, arguing the price was too low. A court dismissed the suit in May 1947. He had big plans and started by renovating the Mayflower Lounge.
Gone were the warm tones, comfortable chairs and water fountains. Instead the room was done in grays blacks with uncushioned chairs, stark walls, and a closed entrance replacing the glass frontage.
(32:03):
It was a complete failure, not surprising, and had to be renovated again in two years. Why does this man have no good taste at all?
Next, Hilton wanted to make the Mayflower appeal to vacationing families and convention goers. So he aimed to make the hotel more comfortable and less elegant.
(32:24):
Okay.
He covered up the gold leafing and sold the antique furniture. Wow. The three sculptures that had dominated the center of the promenade since the hotel's opening were sold to the National Memorial Park Cemetery.
Next, Hilton added a new air conditioning system that cooled the guests rooms as well as the public spaces. Over the next decade, Hilton hotels spent about a million dollars refurbishing the hotel.
(32:52):
Right. I got things to say about this man.
One, he really liked air conditioning. He really, really did. He did this in the plaza as well. Two, he likes to cover up mezzanines for some reason. I don't know why.
And then color everything ugly.
I know. Apparently there was some kind of like unofficial boycott going on of the Mayflower Lounge after he redid it. And so that's why it failed and they had to renovate it again.
(33:24):
And then apparently everybody loved what they did the second time. And so it became like really happening.
I'm sure the guests though did appreciate having air conditioning in their private rooms because before it had only been for the public spaces. And I mean DC in the summer has got to not be enjoyable.
So I'm sure that they did appreciate that.
(33:45):
Yeah, no, I think he's like comfortable. Yeah, I think he had his intentions. He did not like elegance. Like he really didn't.
Maybe he thought it was like snobby or something, but he was like he wanted middle America to feel comfortable in his hotels and to come.
Right. But like then make your own goddamn hotels. It's not ruining. Yeah, stop buying great hotels and bringing them down.
(34:12):
Yeah. Also, it was a failure and then they had to refurbish the un-cushioned chairs. Why? Why?
In March 1948, the retail area was taken over by the hotel and expanded into a much larger bar and dining space named the Town & Country Lounge.
Over the next four decades, the bar became a favorite of Washington politicians and power brokers.
(34:35):
The Sunday Times of London rated Town & Country as one of the star bars of the world alongside the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
The Mob-Constructed Lobby Bar of the Hotel Nacional de Cuba in Havana, which is actually on our list of hotels.
Hopefully, we're going to get to it. And Harry's New York Bar in Paris.
(34:57):
In 1950, the Mayflower celebrated its 25th anniversary with a party.
Hilton even chartered a train named the Hilton Special to bring him and his party to DC.
So I think that it was just like a normal train that you could take or charter, I guess.
And I think that they just like printed out a sign that said the Hilton Special and put it in the window as like a fun joke.
(35:24):
Because the way that the book made it sound was that he like owned a train named the Hilton Special.
I feel like he would own the train though.
Like you would, but I couldn't find any trace of it online. Like I could not find it mentioned anywhere else.
And in the photo, there's just like a sign in the window that says Hilton Special.
(35:45):
So I think it was just a fun joke.
Ah, OK. Well, Hilton was the guest of honor at the reception in the Grand Ballroom with both his portrait and a replica of the book, The Man Who Bought the Waldorf, made out of sugar.
OK, interesting.
The dessert team at the Mayflower sounds incredible.
(36:07):
Right. But why is this about Hilton, not about the hotel?
Because it's Conrad Hilton.
I forgot.
The cake was five tiers with blue and silver frosting. A replica of the Mayflower made out of sugar was the topper.
(36:28):
Cute. Among the over a thousand guests were the prince and princess of Thailand, who made up part of the international community in D.C. as ambassadors.
Hilton was quoted as saying that he meets more interesting people in the plaza in New York and the Mayflower in Washington than in any hotel he had ever purchased.
(36:49):
Yes, because those are the most impressive hotels he owned.
President Truman, who served from 1945 to 1953, was a frequent guest at the Mayflower after leaving office.
He had originally planned to live at the Mayflower after his presidency in Suite 676, which was reserved for him and renamed the presidential suite.
(37:13):
But when the Democrats lost the White House, he decided to return to Missouri instead, where he was from.
He would sign the guest book when he stayed there as retired farmer under occupation.
During a visit, they had a new cashier who didn't recognize him.
And so when he was done eating or staying, she asked to see his credit card, but he didn't have one.
(37:38):
So she called the credit manager and the credit manager had to explain to the woman that, quote, presidents of the United States don't need credit cards.
Oh, my God. Yeah. But luckily, she wasn't fired. She got to take a photo with the president instead.
(37:59):
Well, she was doing her job. She just she didn't recognize the president of the United States.
She was brand new, I'm guessing, like in the world.
Eddie Derendorf, who worked as a doorman at the Mayflower for 47 years, said Truman was his favorite president.
They would walk around the block together for exercise. And Derendorf even rode with him in his limousine to Union Station once.
(38:25):
Oh, he sounds so friendly. That's nice.
The Mayflower's band leader, Sidney Seidman, Jr. used to carry a letter in his wallet that his father, the hotel's original band leader, Sidney Seidman, Sr.
wrote to him when he was in the army in World War II and Truman was still vice president at that time.
The letter tells of an evening that Sidney Sr. shared with Truman.
(38:50):
He played a dinner at the Mayflower in honor of the vice president and Mrs.
Truman and Truman actually played the piano with the band. I believe Chopsticks was one of the songs Sid mentioned.
But Seidman said, quote, It was very cozy. He seems a very swell guy.
I don't suppose the German vice presidential equivalent would go around playing with the likes of me, now would he?
(39:14):
That could only happen here and damn few other places.
Oh, wow. He was really liked.
Yeah.
J. Edgar Hoover was the director of the FBI from its beginning in 1935 after the Bureau of Investigation was reorganized.
(39:35):
He had been head of it since 1924.
Hoover is known as being one of the most powerful men in Washington, holding a number of secrets over politicians heads, including presidents.
He had lunch nearly every day at the Mayflower Hotel's rib room with Clyde Tulson, associate director of the FBI, from 1952 until Hoover's death in 1972.
(40:00):
Hoover had the same lunch every day.
Chicken soup, followed by a salad of iceberg lettuce, grapefruit, and cottage cheese.
Buttered white toast was served on the side.
He brought his own diet salad dressing. I wonder what that was made of.
Hoover was so well known at the rib room that he sometimes ducked out through the kitchen to avoid reporters.
(40:25):
So everyone knew you could just catch him.
You know, even though that food all sounds incredibly boring and bland, if the rib room was anything like the restaurant at the Mayflower is now,
it could have been the simplest food in the world and it was delicious.
Yeah, it's the quality. Yeah.
So one story about Hoover at the Mayflower is that according to an article in the Mayflower log,
(40:54):
Hoover was enjoying his lunch one day when he noticed public enemy number three just two tables away.
He had the man arrested and taken away and then resumed his meal and then turned again the next day as usual.
Now, I tried to look this up. I couldn't find who was considered public enemy number three when this was supposed to have happened in the 50s.
(41:16):
So I have no idea if the story is true or not.
I would think since they printed it in the Mayflower log that it must have some basis in reality.
But I don't know who Hoover had arrested. Who's public enemy number three, though, wouldn't they say?
Is that so top secret? And also, why would that public enemy come and hang out where Hoover is the FBI had like everybody knew everybody knew that Hoover had his lunch at the rib room every workday.
(41:47):
Were the criminals just done back then?
So that's why I like I don't know about I don't know about the validity of the validity of the story, but it's really funny.
Yeah. During the last eight years of his life, Hoover was served at the restaurant by Joe Chapman and they became genuine friends.
Hoover would send him postcards from his travels after Hoover died.
(42:08):
Chapman even draped his usual table in bunting.
Some say red, white and blue. Others say black and wouldn't let anyone sit there until after Hoover was buried.
So for like a week, because I think Hoover got to Lyon State when the movie The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover was being filmed in 1977.
Chapman was actually cast as himself to play the waiter in scenes of them having lunch at the Mayflower.
(42:34):
And he was also hired to coach the leading actor Broderick Crawford on how to portray him authentically.
Wow. Yeah. And those scenes were filmed on location in the Mayflower.
We need to watch this movie. Yeah, we've got to.
And of course, I forgot to mention that Hoover's usual table was with his back against the wall so that he could see everyone in the room.
(42:58):
Yeah. That's the only table an FBI director should have. Yeah, absolutely.
Hoover and Tulsen were so close. Their relationship has sparked more than a few rumors about its nature.
Hoover picked up Tulsen every morning from work, vacations with him and left him most of his estate.
(43:21):
The two men often spent weekends together in New York, Christmas season together in Florida, and the start of the Del Mar horse racing season together in California.
According to a Slate.com article, for some four decades, the creme de la creme of political America treated them as a recognized couple.
When Edgar was invited to dinner, so was Clyde.
(43:45):
Yeah, so apparently their relationship was like described as spousal, even if people didn't like know for sure like they weren't officially homosexual.
Of course, that was a problem in those times. Everybody still like knew that they were a pair wherever they went.
Like they were going to be together. I think they were.
(44:06):
I mean, all the signs point. All the signs. What your vacation? That's more than just that.
You don't run shows on vacation with their boss, even if you are really good close.
I mean, because people with working relationships of decades, of course, form very close relationships.
But still, you don't go on vacation with your boss. Were they married? No, no, they were. They were lifelong bachelors.
(44:32):
They didn't even get a beard. Oh, come on. Like it's every once in a while, Hoover would like go on a date or like be like tied to a famous woman for like a minute.
But it was like it was like he went on these dates because it was the social convention like he was.
He like, no, he did not have long term relationships. It was no.
(44:55):
When Hoover died in 1972, Tulsa inherited his estate of basically four million dollars today, moved into his house and accepted the U.S. flag draped on Hoover's coffin.
If Hoover had had a wife, that is what the wife would have done is accept his flag. That's crazy.
After Hoover's death on May 2nd, 1972, Tulsa was briefly the acting head of the FBI.
(45:21):
Al Patrick Gray became acting director on May 3rd, so he was just the head for one day.
Citing ill health, Tulsa retired from the bureau on May 4th, the day of Hoover's funeral. Oh, my God. He was heartbroken.
Yeah. So, I mean, they worked together for like 40 some odd years. And the day after, like basically two days after Hoover dies or some or some such, he he quits the bureau.
(45:47):
Like he was only there for him. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That was love right there.
None of the rumors have been substantiated without a doubt. In fact, Hoover used homophobia political advantage. You know what that means.
Whenever they claim it, whoever smelt it, whoever smelt it, he spread gay stories about Adlai Stevenson, among others, to waylay his presidential candidacy.
(46:17):
So he would point the finger at others when really he got four fingers pointing right back at you.
Yeah. So this is a this is a very complex individual. I really I've got to read a biography on this man because all of that there was too there was too much to even begin to scrape the surface of who J. Edgar Hoover was.
(46:44):
Just the strangleholds that he had on Washington, D.C. for the entire time that for 50 years, basically.
So what did he have on everyone? No one knows. He always would like talk about secrets that he knew about people and that he had all of these secret files and papers that he kept off site.
Like after he died, the the president like had immediately had his office and his home searched trying to find these secret files that supposedly he had all these this dirt on everybody and nobody ever found them.
(47:20):
You think they still exist? Or did he just pretend like he was keeping he he must have known stuff. I think I think Tolson probably put them somewhere. Who knows?
So both of the Mayflower's restaurants are named after the pair. Edgar Kitchen and Bar is dark and moody and a little old fashioned just like its namesake while the other named the Tolson Bird Bar is more bright and casual and fun.
(47:51):
According to a Washingtonian article about Tolson, the Bird Bar opening back in February of 2020, then general manager Cory Johnson said that Hoover was a quote very formal, very deep penetrating guy while Tolson was the fun, eclectic one.
Hoover referred to Tolson as his alter ego. So the restaurants reflect that in their differences and the Tolson Bird Bar was supposed to open in 2020 but then the pandemic happened and it's really materialized into what it was supposed to be.
(48:25):
If it had opened the menu would have featured mostly fried chicken dishes basically they wanted to do one thing and do it really well. And it would have had one major splurge item which was a $195 bucket of fried chicken with caviar and champagne.
Fancy fried chicken.
Wow.
(48:46):
I like that they, you know, reflected on their personalities and their right to each other and now I think the bar is it mostly just a private event space.
So I think they're just using it.
It's really nice. Yeah, I really hope that they reimagine and redo the original vision because I think that would be a really cool spot.
(49:08):
Tolson was also an inventor. So the bar features framed photos of his designs and patents. And do you remember what some of them were.
They were one of them was like automatic window shade.
There was like a bottle opener or something that might have been one of them.
(49:30):
The bar's logo is a carnation on top of an upside down triangle, both symbols meant to represent the LGBTQ community. The inverted pink triangle was used by Nazi Germany to identify gay prisoners and concentration camps during World War Two, but the gay community
reclaimed that symbol in the 1970s. And then the carnation has been used as a symbol of gay identity since the 1890s when Oscar Wilde popularized it.
(49:56):
No way. A neon sign in the bird bar also reads very truly yours in script.
And because when the men first started working together, Tolson would sign his letters to Hoover respectfully Clyde A. Tolson, but as the years and their relationship progressed, it morphed to very truly yours.
(50:18):
That's romantic as fuck. Come on.
Like who who still has doubts about what this relationship was. You don't say that to your friend. I'm sorry.
Well, definitely men don't say that. Yeah, men don't say that. Yeah.
It's like the toxic masculine times of the 1960s and 70s. It's funny because like he didn't really care about the image that he was showing to the world as being in a gay relationship, but he just just wanted to point the finger at everyone else who seemed gay.
(50:53):
I mean, I guess he knew that it was a weapon that he could utilize. And people couldn't really use it against him because he had so much power.
The Mayflower hotels purchased the Statler hotels chain in 1954 and as a result own multiple large hotels in many major cities, as in Washington, where they now own the Mayflower and the Statler Hotel.
(51:24):
Soon after the federal government filed an antitrust action against Hilton to resolve the suit, Hilton agreed to sell the Mayflower, the Roosevelt Hotel in New York and the Hotel Jefferson in St. Louis.
That is what we were talking about before. It's like, how can he own so many hotels? Yeah. Yeah.
The government was also like, okay, too many.
(51:46):
Hilton hotels sold the Mayflower to the Hotel Corporation of America, HCA, on April 1, 1956, for $12.8 million. Wow, that's a lot of money.
Not too shabby. Yeah.
HCA renovated the Mayflower's old garden terrace, renaming it the rib room. They also enclosed the mezzanine in wood paneling. So they enclosed the mezzanine.
(52:09):
They're the culprits. Oh, we don't like that. The hotel's occupancy rates were lower than average, however.
I wonder why.
In 1963, for example, the Mayflower lost $450,000.
HCA privately expressed interest in selling the property.
What'd you do, guys? Why doing this?
(52:30):
Now we're going to continue with a short excerpt from our interview with Catherine Orr of Historic Hotels of America, talking about one of her favorite historic anecdotes from the Mayflower's history.
My favorite is the one about the Whirly Girls.
The Whirly Girls were a group of female pilots in the 1940s and 50s. They came together in 1955 here at the Mayflower to form the Whirly Girls Club, essentially.
(52:59):
And it was maybe 10 to 20 of the world's leading helicopter pilots, female helicopter pilots.
And they drew up their founding documents on Mayflower Stationery right here at the mezzanine where we're sitting now.
And I just love that story. The organization still exists to this day. You can look them up online.
(53:21):
Yes, absolutely. And I don't think Amelia Earhart was a member, but she had visited the Mayflower.
So there's a lot of women's aviation history present here in the hotel.
That's really cool. I had no idea.
But I think that what we always say is that like the groundwork for equality and change happens at hotels.
(53:48):
And another example of that.
Women's history in hotels is so we could have a whole podcast just on women's history in hotels.
Absolutely. And you know, it touches on something I said earlier. I said that these places were open to the public.
I mean, really, places weren't open to the public until the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
(54:10):
So there's a lot of a lot of that history here.
So President Eisenhower and the First Lady Mamie Eisenhower attended a number of events at the Mayflower in the 1950s.
(54:31):
In 1953, he was honored at a dinner hosted by the Anti-Defamation League for ending segregation in the Army.
Guests included Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Ethel Merman, Eddie Fisher, Jane Froman, Lily Palmer and Rex Harrison.
Good job, Ike, for for doing that. Yeah.
In 1954, he attended a state dinner for President Sukarno of Indonesia.
(54:55):
A veteran banquet captain accidentally stepped on Ike's foot and he reassured the embarrassed captain.
Don't worry. A lot of people have stepped on my toes before.
At a dinner in honor of King Saud of Saudi Arabia, a pond was installed complete with lilies and goldfish.
And we're back to bringing the outdoors indoors.
But can we talk about how when Saudi princes, like anything with the Saudis, they come into hotels and the ass kissing that goes on.
(55:26):
And to this day, I want to say, oh my God, like,
remember the Saudi prince who was eating lobster and throwing that and just throwing it into the fountain?
Yeah. And then the Saudi prince that went to the Savoy, I think, owned it or something.
And everything had to be on his time zone.
(55:48):
Oh, yes, because he doesn't change his time zone when he traveled.
Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah.
And when you go into hotels and like the Saudis come, they bend over backwards.
In November, 1954, 900 Republican women celebrated Mamie Eisenhower's 58th birthday at the Mayflower.
(56:10):
Comedian Red Skelton was a surprise performer and burst out of a seven foot high birthday box.
An elaborate lunch was served with baked Alaska for dessert.
A lot of the menus that I read from this time baked Alaska was like the dessert of this period.
It's so funny that everybody had it and loved it.
It's baked. What the hell is baked Alaska?
(56:32):
The one that you like set the meringue on fire, right?
I thought it was just like three different ice creams.
I think it's like an ice cream base, but then I think it's covered in meringue.
And then I think you set that out, you like flambé that.
It's such a rage and now you never see it anymore.
This is fucking weird.
In 1957, King Mohammed V of Morocco visited the United States and hosted a dinner for President and Mrs. Eisenhower in the Grand Ballroom.
(57:01):
The king was formerly the Sultan of Morocco, but had successfully negotiated with France for Moroccan independence and took the title of king in 1957.
Queen Elizabeth visited the U.S. for the first time in 1957.
She attended a reception at the Mayflower, held of course in the Grand Ballroom.
The Grand Ballroom is where it's at.
She also visited Jamestown, Virginia, America's first permanent English settlement to celebrate its 350th anniversary.
(57:29):
Isn't that a little bit like showing up at your ex's wedding?
The one that got away.
You're kind of right.
What is the diplomacy of inviting your former monarch to your we got away from you party?
Yeah, times have changed, you know.
(57:51):
It's true.
In 1959, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev visited the U.S.
the first time a Soviet government official had done so in decades.
President Eisenhower had the White House pull out its gold service for their state dinner.
Khrushchev reciprocated with a dinner at the Soviet Embassy, but they didn't have gold service and they felt like they needed to bring their A game.
(58:17):
So they obviously couldn't borrow it from the White House who had just hosted them.
So they established diplomatic relations with the Mayflower and borrowed it from the hotel, which had the only other gold service in the city.
I mean, it makes sense, right?
Why would they have anything nice?
It's the Soviet Union.
(58:39):
We are going into a part three, of course, because we learned our lesson when we recorded the episodes on the Plaza that we should not have two hour long episodes.
So we got several parts.
Yeah.
And this this hotel is just so much going on that we want to do with justice and tell everyone all these amazing funny stories that happen there.
(59:03):
Yeah, like all of the fun little details is what part of what gives it so much character.
Thanks for listening to Hotel History.
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Hotel history is created for adult audiences.
(00:03):
Content may not be suitable for all listeners.
Discretion is advised.
You're listening to Hotel History.
We take you with us through the sordid history and scandals
of some of the world's most famous and infamous hotels.
I'm D'Etta
And I'm Yael.
Let's get started.
(00:23):
We are back with part two of our series on the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC, which is currently celebrating its centennial.
So last time we left off in the 1930s, and I wanted to kind of revisit that and touch a little bit more on FDR and the New Deal years as they unfolded in Washington.
(00:47):
Roosevelt's New Deal plan re-energized Washington.
He created 30,000 new government jobs, many of which ended up being filled by young people fresh out of university who energized the city and even changed the landscape of the Mayflower's dining establishments.
Now, instead of seeing debutantes in their couture gowns at the Palm Court, it was full of government girls who were called G-girls and young men newly employed by all of these new agencies.
(01:21):
So a little bit more of a middle class vibe starting to infiltrate this formerly a percussed society establishment.
And all of this activity revitalized the hotel industry, which before, because of the Depression, had floor after floor of empty rooms just like hotels everywhere else in the country.
(01:45):
But now they were overflowing with guests.
The Mayflower had to convert 47 servants quarters into guest rooms to accommodate everybody.
And part of this overload was due to industry representatives coming into Washington to participate in these deliberations of the National Industrial Recovery Act.
This act required economic codes for every major industry in the country.
(02:09):
So the Mayflower was booked for both formal Recovery Act hearings and also just informal gatherings for all of these industry leaders to discuss.
And one of the most important held there was in November 1934 by the Committee on Economic Security to discuss the Social Security Program.
200 experts on social problems were invited and William Green, President of the American Federation of Labor, said in a speech that it was possibly the most important economic conference ever held in America.
(02:42):
Wow, that's crazy that all of that happened within the Mayflower.
I know.
That's like a very pivotal point in American history.
It's definitely in terms of the economy.
Yes.
He was right.
I think he was right.
Just the aftermath of the Depression is so serious.
(03:07):
And then, you know, to have that your hotel as the as ground zero of like recovering.
Yeah.
And then the worst economic crisis and it's it is it in history or in modern history?
Yeah, in America's history.
In America's history.
Yeah.
So that's that's really interesting.
Amidst all the government officials, celebrities also started visiting the Mayflower both as guests and performers.
(03:34):
Apparently, when Jean Harlow stayed there, she liked to see behind the scenes.
She went into the kitchen at the Carvery to watch the chef and at the bar, she told the bartender that the perfect martini needed a dash of bitters.
She spent a few hours mastering the switchboard, putting orders in through to room service and making wake up calls.
(03:55):
So she she just was like, I'm going to do everything kind of, you know what?
I like I like that because I feel like I'm the same way.
I would do the same thing.
She she wants to know all the parts and not just I feel like also on film, she on sets or something.
She would have done that.
Like, what is the directing and the lighting and then this and the costumes?
Like, I want to know all of this, how everything works.
(04:17):
And also, this is probably a great photo op.
Like, I'm sure they took really cute photos of her at the switchboard.
Yeah. Yeah.
Also, imagine getting woken up by Jean Harlow in the 1920s or whatever.
No one would ever believe you.
No, I swear to God, Jean Harlow called my hotel room.
(04:38):
How did she sound?
Do we know how she sounded?
Yeah, wasn't she didn't she have that like come up and see me sometime?
Wasn't that Jean Harlow?
No, that was Mae West.
Mae West.
Would you be shocked if I put on something more comfortable?
The way she spoke would have been I feel like you would have known it was her in the morning.
(05:04):
In October 1941, Hildegard performed at the annual Orchids and Champagne Party,
which kicked off the fall social season in D.C.
I got to say something.
One, that party sounds awesome.
Two, did Hildegard like perform everywhere?
Yes, apparently.
I love how many parallels there are between the Plaza and the Mayflower because she's everywhere.
(05:27):
Yeah, but no one's heard of her outside of like historian things.
She was such a big deal back then.
What happened to her?
I think she just retired.
But it's very interesting.
She was really like she had her moment back in the 40s.
Yeah, like 40s through 60s because I think she was still performing at the Persian Room at the Plaza until it closed.
(05:53):
Yeah, I think that just since she was a cabaret singer and as cabaret faded away, she just retired.
Good for her.
I mean, she had a great life.
The day after the December 7th, 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Mayflower staff mobilized its Civil Defense Organization,
(06:19):
which was created to help the hotel protect guests during an air raid.
It only took a week for the staff to cover the windows and lobby doors with lightproof blinds and black out the skylights.
Each floor of the hotel had two air raid sirens and a first aid station, and the barbershop was used to stock hospital supplies.
The roof was turned into a lookout station with telephones to report plane sightings and stocked with firefighting equipment.
(06:43):
If you've listened to any of our big episodes that include World War II, you know we love a hotel, a rooftop plane sighting station.
Oh, yeah. And then they only give you a little hat to protect yourself from a bomb.
Many staff members became certified in first aid and also took advanced training.
(07:07):
They learned how to turn bedspreads, blankets, sheets, mattresses, and box springs into stretchers,
how to make bandages out of tablecloths and napkins, how to use brooms for splints, and how to transport the injured using tables and chairs.
The Mayflower even had a room set up for volunteers to donate blood.
They were not messing around.
(07:28):
No, they really have been using everything they got.
Short of turning the Mayflower into an army base, it sounds like.
The Mayflower also sponsored volunteer recruitment campaigns in the lobby, sent books to the armed services, and put patriotic messages on its billboards.
It sent furniture to the Kiwanis military camp in Hawaii, and displayed commemorative plaques in the lobby with the names of employees who enlisted in the military.
(07:54):
But guests were required to do their part too.
Rooms were equipped with blue light bulbs, which are less visible from the air, and instructions for air raids.
The blackout arrangements allowed guests to continue dining and dancing in the hotel as usual.
The Mayflower held a blackout drill, Washington, D.C.'s first, in February of 1942.
After the siren wailed, the hotel seemed to vanish from Connecticut Avenue.
(08:19):
The Mayflower's Log, which is a monthly magazine that the Mayflower used to put out, described it as looking like an empty office building with no indication that hundreds of guests were inside going about their business, dining, dancing, and strolling down the promenade.
This meant they blacked out the skylights in the lobby too.
They also hid the chandeliers in the basement so they wouldn't get ruined in case the city was bombed, but they actually forgot where they put them.
(08:44):
And years later in the 1950s, they found the chandeliers and were able to restore them.
That's crazy that they... do you imagine doing that now? A blackout raid?
Oh my god, no. And they mobilized all of this stuff so quickly.
We entered the war in December of 41 and February of 42, they're already conducting these drills.
(09:09):
I know, wow.
Another wartime amenity the Mayflower provided was the Interim Club.
Due to wartime hotel room shortages, sometimes people arrived early and their rooms were still being used by the previous guests.
The Interim Club provided closets, dressing rooms, telephone booths, and two attendants for guests to use while they waited for their room to be ready.
(09:33):
Here they could freshen up, change their clothes, do paperwork, and make and receive phone calls, all at no charge.
So they used every single part of the hotel.
And it's like, oh sorry, here's a closet.
I can't imagine them doing that now unless you have a wedding. I feel like weddings, they kind of do that.
(09:56):
The Mayflower held many benefits for the war effort throughout World War II.
In September 1941, they hosted Retailers for Defense Week, which was a week-long nationwide event where retailers partnered with the U.S. government to sell defense stamps.
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was active in promoting the sale of defense stamps and saving and war bonds.
(10:18):
So she officially opened Retailers for Defense Week by selling a defense stamp at the Mayflower to the executive director of the Supply, Priorities, and Allocations Board.
The Mayflower was one of 6,000 hotels across the country to sell them.
Defense stamps were issued to help fund the war and were meant to be affordable for common citizens.
(10:39):
They came in denominations of 10 cents, 25 cents, 50 cents, a dollar, and five dollars.
And once you filled a book with stamps, you could trade it for a treasury bond, which would mature in 10 years.
During the Retailers for Defense Week, stores across the nation heavily advertised and sold defense stamps,
offered education about them, had patriotic decorations and window displays, and even held a nationwide contest to choose Mrs. Typical Customer of 1942.
(11:09):
I love this so much.
The winner was Mrs. Clarence C. Cox of Greensville, South Carolina, who won with her no-nonsense mantra of, Sane, not panicky buying.
What?
They're like, how do we get the women involved in this?
I know. Let's have a contest.
We're so competitive.
(11:30):
Let's just rehash this.
I'm so curious about how the world, or specifically how America was run back then, because we don't do that for the war effort.
We just pay taxes.
I'm kind of impressed that it was so communal.
And like, let's all do our part or whatever.
(11:52):
I mean, obviously, we haven't had a war like World War II, but it's so interesting that they were like, we really need all this money, so we're going to make everything available.
Because now it's like, come to our benefit.
It's $1,500 for a seat.
And I'm like, no, sir, no one normal can afford a $1,500 benefit seat.
I don't care what.
(12:13):
But I can definitely give you $5 for this.
I can trade in for a bond, totally.
Also, I would just like to point out that this started in September of 1941, and the US did not enter the war until December of 1941.
But this to me shows that even though the US was still technically being isolationist, that they already knew that we were going to have to enter the war.
(12:41):
I think they definitely were already making plans to enter.
And they were like, well, let's go ahead and get some money because we're definitely going to war, even if because I know they did know that Japan was planning to attack us and they just didn't care or win.
And so I think that they were trying to go ahead and preemptively start raising some money.
Well, if Eleanor Roosevelt was already involved in this, she must have.
(13:05):
I mean, she would have known.
So now back to Mrs. Typical Customer.
So the women who entered this contest had to write a little essay on how to be basically a responsible customer during and had a responsible patriotic customer during this time.
(13:28):
And so, yeah, she won because she was saying we need to be, you know, we all need.
She was based. She would have been appalled by how people acted during covid because she was basically like, hey, we know that things might get rationed.
We know things might run out, but nobody needs to panic and we just need to buy as much as we need when we need it and make sure there's enough for to go around and for them to use for the military.
(13:53):
And so, yeah, she would have lost her mind that people buying the grocery store out of toilet paper.
But we didn't have rations. You know how like they had tickets, like little ration pieces where you went to the store and you can only buy like three eggs.
Yeah, like that. But there was a reason they were like, you don't trust you.
(14:16):
No, because at this point we hadn't been rationed yet. I don't think rations actually started until we officially entered the war.
They also held USO shows in the grand ballroom that were usually standing room only. They would feature entertainers like Red Stelton and Marlene Dietrich.
Gene Kelly hosted a war bond benefit also held in the ballroom. This was really common back then. All these celebrities like gathered and did this. They traveled to like entertain the soldiers.
(14:48):
And I guess it worked because I mean, those were huge celebrities. Yeah. The Mayflower's kitchens felt the squeeze during the war because of course everything was rationed like we mentioned.
But the Mayflower, unlike the Savoy from what I remember, didn't get any supplies off the black market and stuck to legitimate suppliers.
(15:10):
Because of that, they had to develop some original dishes with inventive substitutions like one of the substitutions they mentioned was using black olives in place of truffles, which gross.
Staffing was another problem, as many of the young and able bodied men had gone off to war, they had to hire all new workers who may or may not have any skills related to the job they were applying for.
(15:40):
For example, the position of night auditor saw applicants, including a photographer and in Balmer, a machinist's helper and inventor, a furrier and an electrician and the electrician got the job.
Private cars and fuel were also scarce at the time. So if any employees had a car, the general manager encouraged them to give rides to people headed in the direction of the hotel.
(16:06):
So the staff put printed signs on their windshields that said destination, the Mayflower, want a ride?
Oh, so environmentally friendly.
No, apparently that the buses and trains were extremely packed during this time because of how hard it was to have a car or fuel the car if you had one.
(16:32):
Another staffing issue was caused by the Justice Department, which banned German, Italian and Japanese nationals from working at any hotels.
The Mayflower complied and had to fire 25 waiters. They also, we mentioned this last time, but I got a little bit more information on it.
They also put cards on each table in the restaurant that reminded patrons, because tons of government officials come there, not to talk about sensitive war issues at dinner.
(17:01):
The cards actually featured a cartoon of Hitler with huge pointed ears that said, go on and talk. I'm all ears.
Whoa, straight to the point.
Wow. Housing also became so scarce in Washington during the war that a one room apartment that had gone for $55 a month in 1940 cost $625 a month in 1942.
(17:34):
That's it. That's a lot of money. Holy crap. My mom in the 70s paid like 200 bucks for an apartment in Manhattan, a month.
So I can't imagine what this, how much that was in 1940. So Washington hotels saw the volumes of their rooms soar, of course, but the Mayflower's general manager at the time, CJ Mack, made sure the hotel rooms were given principally to those guests deemed vital to the war effort.
(18:01):
So apparently people would come in and like try to bribe the front desk to give them rooms and the Mayflower was like, no, we're not.
If the government said you were important, you got to keep your room there indefinitely. But if you weren't important to the war effort, then the hotel enforced a five day limit.
(18:22):
Wow. So they were rationing everything.
During this time Winston Churchill became a familiar guest, the banquet manager at the time recalled serving him at formal dinners. And when it was time for coffee, Churchill requested a cup filled with brandy instead.
That sounds like him. After he became prime minister, he attended a state dinner with Franklin D Roosevelt in the Chinese room, directly under the dome.
(18:48):
So, if anyone.
Most people don't know the Chinese room at all.
But I guess it's like, as it says, there's a dome shaped ceiling. The story goes after dessert was served, Churchill whispered a lewd joke in a friend's ear. But because of the acoustic effect of the dome, everyone at the table heard it, including President Roosevelt, who was not amused.
(19:14):
And apparently the ladies at the table were like, well, I never clutching their pearls.
Yeah.
Nobody knows if the story is true. But I just think he probably said a lewd joke and everyone was like, Oh my god, I think he didn't whisper it. I think he fully said it to the table and later they were like, Oh no, he, he whispered it and just people overheard.
(19:44):
Okay, now we are at one of the most interesting I think stories that has happened at the Mayflower. So while the Mayflower was full of heads of state during the war, like Churchill and Charles de Gaulle, celebrities performing for the USO military officials, it was also
full of spies that the kitchen staff was 100% correct in putting those cards on the tables telling people to shut up, because 100% spies in the Mayflower.
(20:13):
So, in 1923, a German national named George Dash entered the United States illegally through the port of Philadelphia as a stowaway.
Then he stayed in New York City. In 1927 he enlisted as a private in the US Army Air Corps, and was assigned to Honolulu. But after a year he bought himself out and received an honorable discharge.
(20:35):
He then worked as a waiter in San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles and came back to New York. In 1930 he married Rosemary Gill, or Guilla, Guilla, an American citizen.
Dash re-enlisted in the US Army in 1936 and was stationed at Fort Ontario in Oswego, New York. While serving, he married Charlotte Holliday in March of 1936. He used the alias George Henry Aldash, because that's so different from George Dash, to hide his big knee, because yeah, he never bothered to divorce Rose that he had married back in 1930.
(21:11):
Oh God.
So he and Charlotte lived at the home of her father, Jay Holliday, in Oswego, while he served at Fort Ontario. They had a son, Howard, and sometime in 1938, Dash left the army, abandoned his wife, quote unquote, wife, and their son, and returned to Germany.
Back in Germany, Dash and seven others were trained for espionage activities in a school run by the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, the German High Command, on an estate at Quinn's Lake near Berlin.
(21:44):
They received three weeks of intensive sabotage training and were instructed in the manufacture and use of explosives, explosives, incendiary material, and various forms of mechanical, chemical, and electrical delayed timing devices. Damn, so bombs. Just say bomb.
Yeah.
Considerable time was spent developing the false background histories they were to use back in the US. They were encouraged to converse in English and to read American newspapers and magazines.
(22:15):
On May 26, 1942, Dash and his team, Ernest Peter Berger, Henrich Harmhank, and Richard Currin, I don't care, that's not how you pronounce their names, but whatever, left by submarine from Laurent, France. They landed on Long Island, New York, shortly after midnight on the 12th of June.
(22:37):
They were wearing German Navy uniforms to avoid being shot at as spies if they were captured during the landing. Once they were ashore, they changed into civilian clothes and buried their uniforms and other equipment.
Early that morning, John C. Cullen, a Coast Guard's Guardsman in New York spotted Dash and the three others posing as fishermen on a raft off the coast of Long Island. He saw they were armed and also noticed a submerged submarine.
(23:03):
Not very subtle, guys. The men gave him money to keep quiet. Increasingly alarmed, he took the bribe but alerted his superior. Smart man. He's like, sure. He's like, oh yeah, I won't tell a soul. You give me that money first.
By the time an armed patrol could reach the site, the four Germans had taken the Long Island Railroad train from the station into Manhattan, where they checked into a hotel. A search of the beach revealed concealed explosives, timers, blasting caps and bombs, and cigarettes in their uniforms.
(23:37):
President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the FBI were immediately alerted and the FBI conducted a massive manhunt. All information was kept secret to avoid public panic and to prevent the spies from knowing that they have been discovered.
However, the FBI did not know exactly where the Germans were going. I don't think they knew where they were going.
It does not sound like I know. They said that they got extensive training, but I don't think that they got extensive training.
(24:05):
So, Dash was unhappy with the Nazi regime. He eventually talked to one of his compatriots, a naturalized American citizen that we mentioned before, Ernst Peter Berger. That name doesn't sound real and I can't take it seriously.
About defecting to the United States. Their plan was to surrender immediately to the FBI. Dash ordered Berger to stay and keep an eye on the other German agents. On June 15th, Dash called the FBI office in New York from a payphone on the Upper West Side.
(24:36):
The FBI agent did not believe his story, so Dash hung up and took a train to Washington DC four days later and checked in at the Mayflower Hotel and room 351. He then went to the FBI headquarters asking to speak to J. Edgar Hoover, who was the director of the FBI.
Dash tried to tell the truth to the FBI officials, but they did not believe his story, even though they're looking for these guys. They're like, no, it's not you.
(25:01):
While Dash was at the headquarters, the FBI sent agents to his hotel room where they found $82,000 in cash.
Okay.
They could have used some of that money to bribe the Coast Guard better than what they did.
They just sound...
I mean, I've never been a spy, so I can't speak to the intricacies of the industry, but...
(25:27):
I feel like you would be a better spy than that.
Oh, we should also mention in the Mayflower Hotel to this day, there's a little plaque outside of room 351 that talks about this.
It shows the story. So you could stay there. We couldn't go in actually when we went because there was a guest in the room, so that was a bummer.
Yeah.
(25:48):
Dash was arrested and interrogated for eight days. He disclosed the locations of the other men in the sabotage operation, including Berger. He revealed that the goals of the sabotage program had been to disrupt war industries and launch a wave of terror by planting explosives in railway stations, department stores, and public places.
So, terrorism.
(26:10):
Assholes. Armed with the information Dash provided, the FBI arrested Berger and the six other German agents within the following week. The FBI withheld the true circumstances of their arrest prior to the trial of the eight men, including the fact that they did not actually consummate their plans of sabotage.
Well, I have to say, did this...
(26:33):
Horrible spies.
Terrible.
Like, really bad. Oh, so I gotta say, I'm confused by this Dash guy.
German comes here, marries two girls, goes back to Germany, is not happy with the Nazi regime, but then still agrees to come and spy does a bad job.
(26:56):
And then sells out the other spies.
And a complex individual we're dealing with here.
Dash, Berger, and six others were tried by a military commission appointed by President Roosevelt on July 8, 1942.
The eight were convicted of sabotage and sentenced to death.
(27:17):
May Edgar Hoover and Attorney General Biddle appealed to President Roosevelt, who commuted the sentence to life imprisonment for Berger and 30 years for Dash. The others were executed in the electric chair in Washington DC, in jail in Washington DC on August 8, 1942.
I have a question.
(27:38):
Why? It sounded like Dash and Berger were the main guys.
I think they're, I don't think they were the main guys. I think they are only seeming like the main guys because they're the ones who decided to defect and turn themselves in.
Oh, okay, I see they had probably an agreement.
Yeah, because at first, so J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI people did not bother to tell the president or the military commission that they actually turned themselves in, they made it seem like they uncovered them.
(28:15):
And so that's why at first they were all eight sentenced to death. And then I guess, Hoover and or somebody else finally was like oh well yeah actually I guess you could go lighter on those two because they like turned themselves in and weren't going to go through with it.
In 1948, President Harry S Truman had both Berger and Dash released and deported to the American Occupation Zone in Germany. They were not welcomed back in Germany because they were regarded as traders who had caused the death of their comrades.
(28:49):
Tough spot to be in.
Dash's second wife Charlotte Aldash learned his real identity, only in 1942 when he turned himself in a dash his last communication with Charlotte and his son Howard was via a lawyer and military officer in 1955.
At that time, Dash was trying to gain entry back into the United States, but it was denied by J. Edgar Hoover.
(29:15):
Yeah, yeah.
Like, uh, no sir.
I can't come back here.
Although they had been promised pardons by Hoover and exchange for their cooperation, both men, meaning Berger and dash died without ever receiving them. Dash wrote an account of his involvement with what came to be known as Operation pastorious called eight spies against
(29:42):
America. He died in 1991 at the age of 89 and Ludwig Schaffen.
Was he in prison in Germany.
No, I don't believe so. I think he just was hated.
Wow.
Interesting, interesting man. Yeah, at that point I imagine as Germany was rebuilding they probably had other things to think about other than people who defected from the Nazis. So, yeah, that's true.
(30:18):
An important act for veterans occurred at the Mayflower in room 570 from December 15 to 31st 1943, the American Legion met to draft the servicemen's readjustment act of 1944.
Harry Colmery wrote a draft of the act, which we know as the GI Bill on Hotel Letterhead. The legislation was intended to assist returning military members reintegrate in society. Once it passed the bill helped veterans to pay for college or purchase a home once they returned from service.
(30:51):
Again, a really important thing happened at the Mayflower. Like, Whoa.
Yeah, like my grandfather went to college because of the GI Bill.
Yeah, another another important marker of American politics happening in the Mayflower.
It just doesn't stop the legacy of this hotel is is incredible.
(31:17):
Conrad Hilton bought a controlling share of the Mayflower in December 1946 for $2.6 million, making it the 14th hotel owned by the Hilton Corporation. This is I think owned every hotel in America at the time, at some point.
And at some point the government agreed.
Yeah.
(31:38):
Some of the Mayflower stockholders challenged the sale, arguing the price was too low. A court dismissed the suit in May 1947. He had big plans and started by renovating the Mayflower Lounge.
Gone were the warm tones, comfortable chairs and water fountains. Instead the room was done in grays blacks with uncushioned chairs, stark walls, and a closed entrance replacing the glass frontage.
(32:03):
It was a complete failure, not surprising, and had to be renovated again in two years. Why does this man have no good taste at all?
Next, Hilton wanted to make the Mayflower appeal to vacationing families and convention goers. So he aimed to make the hotel more comfortable and less elegant.
(32:24):
Okay.
He covered up the gold leafing and sold the antique furniture. Wow. The three sculptures that had dominated the center of the promenade since the hotel's opening were sold to the National Memorial Park Cemetery.
Next, Hilton added a new air conditioning system that cooled the guests rooms as well as the public spaces. Over the next decade, Hilton hotels spent about a million dollars refurbishing the hotel.
(32:52):
Right. I got things to say about this man.
One, he really liked air conditioning. He really, really did. He did this in the plaza as well. Two, he likes to cover up mezzanines for some reason. I don't know why.
And then color everything ugly.
I know. Apparently there was some kind of like unofficial boycott going on of the Mayflower Lounge after he redid it. And so that's why it failed and they had to renovate it again.
(33:24):
And then apparently everybody loved what they did the second time. And so it became like really happening.
I'm sure the guests though did appreciate having air conditioning in their private rooms because before it had only been for the public spaces. And I mean DC in the summer has got to not be enjoyable.
So I'm sure that they did appreciate that.
(33:45):
Yeah, no, I think he's like comfortable. Yeah, I think he had his intentions. He did not like elegance. Like he really didn't.
Maybe he thought it was like snobby or something, but he was like he wanted middle America to feel comfortable in his hotels and to come.
Right. But like then make your own goddamn hotels. It's not ruining. Yeah, stop buying great hotels and bringing them down.
(34:12):
Yeah. Also, it was a failure and then they had to refurbish the un-cushioned chairs. Why? Why?
In March 1948, the retail area was taken over by the hotel and expanded into a much larger bar and dining space named the Town & Country Lounge.
Over the next four decades, the bar became a favorite of Washington politicians and power brokers.
(34:35):
The Sunday Times of London rated Town & Country as one of the star bars of the world alongside the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
The Mob-Constructed Lobby Bar of the Hotel Nacional de Cuba in Havana, which is actually on our list of hotels.
Hopefully, we're going to get to it. And Harry's New York Bar in Paris.
(34:57):
In 1950, the Mayflower celebrated its 25th anniversary with a party.
Hilton even chartered a train named the Hilton Special to bring him and his party to DC.
So I think that it was just like a normal train that you could take or charter, I guess.
And I think that they just like printed out a sign that said the Hilton Special and put it in the window as like a fun joke.
(35:24):
Because the way that the book made it sound was that he like owned a train named the Hilton Special.
I feel like he would own the train though.
Like you would, but I couldn't find any trace of it online. Like I could not find it mentioned anywhere else.
And in the photo, there's just like a sign in the window that says Hilton Special.
(35:45):
So I think it was just a fun joke.
Ah, OK. Well, Hilton was the guest of honor at the reception in the Grand Ballroom with both his portrait and a replica of the book, The Man Who Bought the Waldorf, made out of sugar.
OK, interesting.
The dessert team at the Mayflower sounds incredible.
(36:07):
Right. But why is this about Hilton, not about the hotel?
Because it's Conrad Hilton.
I forgot.
The cake was five tiers with blue and silver frosting. A replica of the Mayflower made out of sugar was the topper.
(36:28):
Cute. Among the over a thousand guests were the prince and princess of Thailand, who made up part of the international community in D.C. as ambassadors.
Hilton was quoted as saying that he meets more interesting people in the plaza in New York and the Mayflower in Washington than in any hotel he had ever purchased.
(36:49):
Yes, because those are the most impressive hotels he owned.
President Truman, who served from 1945 to 1953, was a frequent guest at the Mayflower after leaving office.
He had originally planned to live at the Mayflower after his presidency in Suite 676, which was reserved for him and renamed the presidential suite.
(37:13):
But when the Democrats lost the White House, he decided to return to Missouri instead, where he was from.
He would sign the guest book when he stayed there as retired farmer under occupation.
During a visit, they had a new cashier who didn't recognize him.
And so when he was done eating or staying, she asked to see his credit card, but he didn't have one.
(37:38):
So she called the credit manager and the credit manager had to explain to the woman that, quote, presidents of the United States don't need credit cards.
Oh, my God. Yeah. But luckily, she wasn't fired. She got to take a photo with the president instead.
(37:59):
Well, she was doing her job. She just she didn't recognize the president of the United States.
She was brand new, I'm guessing, like in the world.
Eddie Derendorf, who worked as a doorman at the Mayflower for 47 years, said Truman was his favorite president.
They would walk around the block together for exercise. And Derendorf even rode with him in his limousine to Union Station once.
(38:25):
Oh, he sounds so friendly. That's nice.
The Mayflower's band leader, Sidney Seidman, Jr. used to carry a letter in his wallet that his father, the hotel's original band leader, Sidney Seidman, Sr.
wrote to him when he was in the army in World War II and Truman was still vice president at that time.
The letter tells of an evening that Sidney Sr. shared with Truman.
(38:50):
He played a dinner at the Mayflower in honor of the vice president and Mrs.
Truman and Truman actually played the piano with the band. I believe Chopsticks was one of the songs Sid mentioned.
But Seidman said, quote, It was very cozy. He seems a very swell guy.
I don't suppose the German vice presidential equivalent would go around playing with the likes of me, now would he?
(39:14):
That could only happen here and damn few other places.
Oh, wow. He was really liked.
Yeah.
J. Edgar Hoover was the director of the FBI from its beginning in 1935 after the Bureau of Investigation was reorganized.
(39:35):
He had been head of it since 1924.
Hoover is known as being one of the most powerful men in Washington, holding a number of secrets over politicians heads, including presidents.
He had lunch nearly every day at the Mayflower Hotel's rib room with Clyde Tulson, associate director of the FBI, from 1952 until Hoover's death in 1972.
(40:00):
Hoover had the same lunch every day.
Chicken soup, followed by a salad of iceberg lettuce, grapefruit, and cottage cheese.
Buttered white toast was served on the side.
He brought his own diet salad dressing. I wonder what that was made of.
Hoover was so well known at the rib room that he sometimes ducked out through the kitchen to avoid reporters.
(40:25):
So everyone knew you could just catch him.
You know, even though that food all sounds incredibly boring and bland, if the rib room was anything like the restaurant at the Mayflower is now,
it could have been the simplest food in the world and it was delicious.
Yeah, it's the quality. Yeah.
So one story about Hoover at the Mayflower is that according to an article in the Mayflower log,
(40:54):
Hoover was enjoying his lunch one day when he noticed public enemy number three just two tables away.
He had the man arrested and taken away and then resumed his meal and then turned again the next day as usual.
Now, I tried to look this up. I couldn't find who was considered public enemy number three when this was supposed to have happened in the 50s.
(41:16):
So I have no idea if the story is true or not.
I would think since they printed it in the Mayflower log that it must have some basis in reality.
But I don't know who Hoover had arrested. Who's public enemy number three, though, wouldn't they say?
Is that so top secret? And also, why would that public enemy come and hang out where Hoover is the FBI had like everybody knew everybody knew that Hoover had his lunch at the rib room every workday.
(41:47):
Were the criminals just done back then?
So that's why I like I don't know about I don't know about the validity of the validity of the story, but it's really funny.
Yeah. During the last eight years of his life, Hoover was served at the restaurant by Joe Chapman and they became genuine friends.
Hoover would send him postcards from his travels after Hoover died.
(42:08):
Chapman even draped his usual table in bunting.
Some say red, white and blue. Others say black and wouldn't let anyone sit there until after Hoover was buried.
So for like a week, because I think Hoover got to Lyon State when the movie The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover was being filmed in 1977.
Chapman was actually cast as himself to play the waiter in scenes of them having lunch at the Mayflower.
(42:34):
And he was also hired to coach the leading actor Broderick Crawford on how to portray him authentically.
Wow. Yeah. And those scenes were filmed on location in the Mayflower.
We need to watch this movie. Yeah, we've got to.
And of course, I forgot to mention that Hoover's usual table was with his back against the wall so that he could see everyone in the room.
(42:58):
Yeah. That's the only table an FBI director should have. Yeah, absolutely.
Hoover and Tulsen were so close. Their relationship has sparked more than a few rumors about its nature.
Hoover picked up Tulsen every morning from work, vacations with him and left him most of his estate.
(43:21):
The two men often spent weekends together in New York, Christmas season together in Florida, and the start of the Del Mar horse racing season together in California.
According to a Slate.com article, for some four decades, the creme de la creme of political America treated them as a recognized couple.
When Edgar was invited to dinner, so was Clyde.
(43:45):
Yeah, so apparently their relationship was like described as spousal, even if people didn't like know for sure like they weren't officially homosexual.
Of course, that was a problem in those times. Everybody still like knew that they were a pair wherever they went.
Like they were going to be together. I think they were.
(44:06):
I mean, all the signs point. All the signs. What your vacation? That's more than just that.
You don't run shows on vacation with their boss, even if you are really good close.
I mean, because people with working relationships of decades, of course, form very close relationships.
But still, you don't go on vacation with your boss. Were they married? No, no, they were. They were lifelong bachelors.
(44:32):
They didn't even get a beard. Oh, come on. Like it's every once in a while, Hoover would like go on a date or like be like tied to a famous woman for like a minute.
But it was like it was like he went on these dates because it was the social convention like he was.
He like, no, he did not have long term relationships. It was no.
(44:55):
When Hoover died in 1972, Tulsa inherited his estate of basically four million dollars today, moved into his house and accepted the U.S. flag draped on Hoover's coffin.
If Hoover had had a wife, that is what the wife would have done is accept his flag. That's crazy.
After Hoover's death on May 2nd, 1972, Tulsa was briefly the acting head of the FBI.
(45:21):
Al Patrick Gray became acting director on May 3rd, so he was just the head for one day.
Citing ill health, Tulsa retired from the bureau on May 4th, the day of Hoover's funeral. Oh, my God. He was heartbroken.
Yeah. So, I mean, they worked together for like 40 some odd years. And the day after, like basically two days after Hoover dies or some or some such, he he quits the bureau.
(45:47):
Like he was only there for him. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That was love right there.
None of the rumors have been substantiated without a doubt. In fact, Hoover used homophobia political advantage. You know what that means.
Whenever they claim it, whoever smelt it, whoever smelt it, he spread gay stories about Adlai Stevenson, among others, to waylay his presidential candidacy.
(46:17):
So he would point the finger at others when really he got four fingers pointing right back at you.
Yeah. So this is a this is a very complex individual. I really I've got to read a biography on this man because all of that there was too there was too much to even begin to scrape the surface of who J. Edgar Hoover was.
(46:44):
Just the strangleholds that he had on Washington, D.C. for the entire time that for 50 years, basically.
So what did he have on everyone? No one knows. He always would like talk about secrets that he knew about people and that he had all of these secret files and papers that he kept off site.
Like after he died, the the president like had immediately had his office and his home searched trying to find these secret files that supposedly he had all these this dirt on everybody and nobody ever found them.
(47:20):
You think they still exist? Or did he just pretend like he was keeping he he must have known stuff. I think I think Tolson probably put them somewhere. Who knows?
So both of the Mayflower's restaurants are named after the pair. Edgar Kitchen and Bar is dark and moody and a little old fashioned just like its namesake while the other named the Tolson Bird Bar is more bright and casual and fun.
(47:51):
According to a Washingtonian article about Tolson, the Bird Bar opening back in February of 2020, then general manager Cory Johnson said that Hoover was a quote very formal, very deep penetrating guy while Tolson was the fun, eclectic one.
Hoover referred to Tolson as his alter ego. So the restaurants reflect that in their differences and the Tolson Bird Bar was supposed to open in 2020 but then the pandemic happened and it's really materialized into what it was supposed to be.
(48:25):
If it had opened the menu would have featured mostly fried chicken dishes basically they wanted to do one thing and do it really well. And it would have had one major splurge item which was a $195 bucket of fried chicken with caviar and champagne.
Fancy fried chicken.
Wow.
(48:46):
I like that they, you know, reflected on their personalities and their right to each other and now I think the bar is it mostly just a private event space.
So I think they're just using it.
It's really nice. Yeah, I really hope that they reimagine and redo the original vision because I think that would be a really cool spot.
(49:08):
Tolson was also an inventor. So the bar features framed photos of his designs and patents. And do you remember what some of them were.
They were one of them was like automatic window shade.
There was like a bottle opener or something that might have been one of them.
(49:30):
The bar's logo is a carnation on top of an upside down triangle, both symbols meant to represent the LGBTQ community. The inverted pink triangle was used by Nazi Germany to identify gay prisoners and concentration camps during World War Two, but the gay community
reclaimed that symbol in the 1970s. And then the carnation has been used as a symbol of gay identity since the 1890s when Oscar Wilde popularized it.
(49:56):
No way. A neon sign in the bird bar also reads very truly yours in script.
And because when the men first started working together, Tolson would sign his letters to Hoover respectfully Clyde A. Tolson, but as the years and their relationship progressed, it morphed to very truly yours.
(50:18):
That's romantic as fuck. Come on.
Like who who still has doubts about what this relationship was. You don't say that to your friend. I'm sorry.
Well, definitely men don't say that. Yeah, men don't say that. Yeah.
It's like the toxic masculine times of the 1960s and 70s. It's funny because like he didn't really care about the image that he was showing to the world as being in a gay relationship, but he just just wanted to point the finger at everyone else who seemed gay.
(50:53):
I mean, I guess he knew that it was a weapon that he could utilize. And people couldn't really use it against him because he had so much power.
The Mayflower hotels purchased the Statler hotels chain in 1954 and as a result own multiple large hotels in many major cities, as in Washington, where they now own the Mayflower and the Statler Hotel.
(51:24):
Soon after the federal government filed an antitrust action against Hilton to resolve the suit, Hilton agreed to sell the Mayflower, the Roosevelt Hotel in New York and the Hotel Jefferson in St. Louis.
That is what we were talking about before. It's like, how can he own so many hotels? Yeah. Yeah.
The government was also like, okay, too many.
(51:46):
Hilton hotels sold the Mayflower to the Hotel Corporation of America, HCA, on April 1, 1956, for $12.8 million. Wow, that's a lot of money.
Not too shabby. Yeah.
HCA renovated the Mayflower's old garden terrace, renaming it the rib room. They also enclosed the mezzanine in wood paneling. So they enclosed the mezzanine.
(52:09):
They're the culprits. Oh, we don't like that. The hotel's occupancy rates were lower than average, however.
I wonder why.
In 1963, for example, the Mayflower lost $450,000.
HCA privately expressed interest in selling the property.
What'd you do, guys? Why doing this?
(52:30):
Now we're going to continue with a short excerpt from our interview with Catherine Orr of Historic Hotels of America, talking about one of her favorite historic anecdotes from the Mayflower's history.
My favorite is the one about the Whirly Girls.
The Whirly Girls were a group of female pilots in the 1940s and 50s. They came together in 1955 here at the Mayflower to form the Whirly Girls Club, essentially.
(52:59):
And it was maybe 10 to 20 of the world's leading helicopter pilots, female helicopter pilots.
And they drew up their founding documents on Mayflower Stationery right here at the mezzanine where we're sitting now.
And I just love that story. The organization still exists to this day. You can look them up online.
(53:21):
Yes, absolutely. And I don't think Amelia Earhart was a member, but she had visited the Mayflower.
So there's a lot of women's aviation history present here in the hotel.
That's really cool. I had no idea.
But I think that what we always say is that like the groundwork for equality and change happens at hotels.
(53:48):
And another example of that.
Women's history in hotels is so we could have a whole podcast just on women's history in hotels.
Absolutely. And you know, it touches on something I said earlier. I said that these places were open to the public.
I mean, really, places weren't open to the public until the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
(54:10):
So there's a lot of a lot of that history here.
So President Eisenhower and the First Lady Mamie Eisenhower attended a number of events at the Mayflower in the 1950s.
(54:31):
In 1953, he was honored at a dinner hosted by the Anti-Defamation League for ending segregation in the Army.
Guests included Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Ethel Merman, Eddie Fisher, Jane Froman, Lily Palmer and Rex Harrison.
Good job, Ike, for for doing that. Yeah.
In 1954, he attended a state dinner for President Sukarno of Indonesia.
(54:55):
A veteran banquet captain accidentally stepped on Ike's foot and he reassured the embarrassed captain.
Don't worry. A lot of people have stepped on my toes before.
At a dinner in honor of King Saud of Saudi Arabia, a pond was installed complete with lilies and goldfish.
And we're back to bringing the outdoors indoors.
But can we talk about how when Saudi princes, like anything with the Saudis, they come into hotels and the ass kissing that goes on.
(55:26):
And to this day, I want to say, oh my God, like,
remember the Saudi prince who was eating lobster and throwing that and just throwing it into the fountain?
Yeah. And then the Saudi prince that went to the Savoy, I think, owned it or something.
And everything had to be on his time zone.
(55:48):
Oh, yes, because he doesn't change his time zone when he traveled.
Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah.
And when you go into hotels and like the Saudis come, they bend over backwards.
In November, 1954, 900 Republican women celebrated Mamie Eisenhower's 58th birthday at the Mayflower.
(56:10):
Comedian Red Skelton was a surprise performer and burst out of a seven foot high birthday box.
An elaborate lunch was served with baked Alaska for dessert.
A lot of the menus that I read from this time baked Alaska was like the dessert of this period.
It's so funny that everybody had it and loved it.
It's baked. What the hell is baked Alaska?
(56:32):
The one that you like set the meringue on fire, right?
I thought it was just like three different ice creams.
I think it's like an ice cream base, but then I think it's covered in meringue.
And then I think you set that out, you like flambé that.
It's such a rage and now you never see it anymore.
This is fucking weird.
In 1957, King Mohammed V of Morocco visited the United States and hosted a dinner for President and Mrs. Eisenhower in the Grand Ballroom.
(57:01):
The king was formerly the Sultan of Morocco, but had successfully negotiated with France for Moroccan independence and took the title of king in 1957.
Queen Elizabeth visited the U.S. for the first time in 1957.
She attended a reception at the Mayflower, held of course in the Grand Ballroom.
The Grand Ballroom is where it's at.
She also visited Jamestown, Virginia, America's first permanent English settlement to celebrate its 350th anniversary.
(57:29):
Isn't that a little bit like showing up at your ex's wedding?
The one that got away.
You're kind of right.
What is the diplomacy of inviting your former monarch to your we got away from you party?
Yeah, times have changed, you know.
(57:51):
It's true.
In 1959, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev visited the U.S.
the first time a Soviet government official had done so in decades.
President Eisenhower had the White House pull out its gold service for their state dinner.
Khrushchev reciprocated with a dinner at the Soviet Embassy, but they didn't have gold service and they felt like they needed to bring their A game.
(58:17):
So they obviously couldn't borrow it from the White House who had just hosted them.
So they established diplomatic relations with the Mayflower and borrowed it from the hotel, which had the only other gold service in the city.
I mean, it makes sense, right?
Why would they have anything nice?
It's the Soviet Union.
(58:39):
We are going into a part three, of course, because we learned our lesson when we recorded the episodes on the Plaza that we should not have two hour long episodes.
So we got several parts.
Yeah.
And this this hotel is just so much going on that we want to do with justice and tell everyone all these amazing funny stories that happen there.
(59:03):
Yeah, like all of the fun little details is what part of what gives it so much character.
Thanks for listening to Hotel History.
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