Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer

24. The Dressler

THE HOTEL DRESSLER OPENED ON AUGUST 31, 1899, on Martin’s twenty-seventh birthday. Long articles in the major city papers praised the building’s boldness of vision, its structural ingenuity, its ability to overcome sheer massiveness by means of an elegant design that led the eye upward through three major groupings to the two-story mansard roof with its tower, and if one journalist chose to complain that the building was “wasteful,” that the facade was so heavily ornamented that it put him in mind of a gigantic wedding cake, even he felt compelled to acknowledge the exuberance of the Dressler, its sheer delight in itself. Crowds came to stare at the block-long building on Riverside Drive that rose eighteen stories into the air, with a central tower that soared to the height of another six stories; and the management received scores of requests for apartments, requests that were carefully entered on a large waiting list, for all apartments had been rented six months before opening day.

Harwinton had devised a shrewd ad campaign. It was aimed broadly at the middle class, but sought in particular to attract what Harwinton called the expanding middle of the middle class — those people who, having reached a comfortable level of existence, aspired to the trappings of wealth without being wealthy. His central theme was “luxury for the non-luxurious income,” an idea repeated in countless newspaper and magazine ads and in a handsome promotional brochure. But Harwinton also emphasized a second and far more dramatic theme: the location of the Dressler. In doing so he drew on two contradictory ideas. The Dressler, he argued, was a rural retreat, a peaceful outpost far from the clamor of downtown Manhattan, but at the same time the Dressler was located in a new and thriving part of the city, only a short distance from a convenient Elevated station, and even closer to the projected subway station on the Boulevard — was located, in short, in the very path of progress. For it was Harwinton’s belief that every city dweller harbored a double desire: the desire to be in the thick of things, and the equal and opposite desire to escape from the horrible thick of things to some peaceful rural place with shady paths, murmuring streams, and the hum of bumblebees over vaguely imagined flowers. It was the good fortune of the Dressler to be able to attach to itself both these desires, for while on the one hand it could offer to the prospective long-term resident a park and a river, a veritable vision of pastoral retreat, on the other it could offer the thrilling sense of being in the forefront of the city’s relentless northward advance. It simply sat there, waiting for the rest of the city to catch up.

The Dressler itself, as the doubting journalist had pointed out and as Martin readily acknowledged, was a massive contradiction: a modern steel-frame building sheathed in heavily ornamented masonry-walls meant to summon up a dream of châteaux and palaces. Every effort had been made to draw the eye away from the monotony of vertical repetition to interruptive or irregular features, such as the two-story arched entranceways and the group of gigantic statues on the fourth-floor cornice, representing Pilgrims and Indians. Above all the eye was drawn to the elaborate roof, with its corner cupolas, its high chimneys, and its central openwork stone tower supplied with a circular observation platform and topped by an eight-foot finial. But the real battle against symmetry took place inside, where no two apartments were alike and where every public room was designed in a different period style. Even more striking, as several journalists remarked, were a number of odd features never seen before in an apartment hotel. It was noted that among the public rooms of the first two floors — the restaurants, the smoking rooms, the reading rooms, the ladies’ parlors — was a scattering of peculiar rooms that seemed to be there to amuse or instruct. Thus there was a circular theater in which a panorama of the entire Manhattan shoreline continually unwound; a room containing a wigwam, a wax squaw gathering sticks, a young brave hacking a rock with a sharpened stone tool, and a seated chief smoking a long pipe, set against a painted background depicting a riverbank; and a hall called the Pageant of Industry and Invention, which contained working scale models of an Otis elevator, a steam train on an Elevated track, a Broadway cable car, and a steam crane lifting an I-beam, as well as full-scale models of a steam turbine, an internal combustion engine, and an electric generator with a drive pulley. These rooms seemed to some commentators a puzzling intrusion of the museum into the world of the hotel, although most acknowledged the rooms’ festive and instructional nature.

No less puzzling to the journalists were a number of curious developments on the upper floors. At the end of a corridor on the sixth floor a four-room apartment had been transformed into an artificial cave, with narrow dim-lit passageways and a real waterfall. On the fourteenth floor a five-room apartment had become a forest, with thick trunks manufactured to resemble pine and oak, greenish light falling through a roof of thick-leaved branches, and a sudden bright-lit glade of real-looking grass and yellow silk wild-flowers. These playful rooms, which Harwinton had named Relaxation Rooms, gave to the hotel a slightly theatrical flavor, a note reinforced by the Riverview Lobby on the tenth floor. Reserved for the exclusive use of hotel guests, the Riverview Lobby was notable not only for its dramatic view of the Hudson and the cliffs of Jersey, but for its meticulous design in the style of an old-fashioned Victorian parlor, with plenty of fringed and tasseled armchairs and couches, statues of coyly bending nymphs, flower arrangements under belljars, majolica vases, an ormolu clock on the marble mantel shelf, and sepia photographs of unsmiling grandfathers in oval frames.

Martin followed the newspaper reports with close interest, puzzled himself by an occasional note of bewilderment or blame, for didn’t they understand that it had all been thought out carefully, didn’t they understand that in any case it had been given to him by the friendly powers, who had led him to the Vanderlyn Hotel at the age of fourteen? But he was pleased by the sheer weight of attention given to the Hotel Dressler, attention that, even if it was sometimes perplexed or disapproving, suggested that he had struck a nerve. He was above all pleased by the interest shown in the first three underground levels, for it was here that he had permitted himself to develop certain ideas that gave him a deep, almost guilty pleasure, as if the sunken world beneath the hotel had encouraged a freedom forbidden by the clear light of upper floors. On the first level, not open to the general public, was the courtyard, with its gardens and gravel paths and wooden benches, its shady bowers, its central three-tiered fountain — a place where hotel guests and invited friends might walk at all hours of the day and night, untroubled by changes in weather. On the second level was the Shopping Arcade, composed of scores of shops and booths on intersecting corridors, interrupted by well-lit plazas with fountains and benches. And on the third level, advertised by Harwinton as one of the wonders of the West End, you came to the Theater District, where Rudolf Arling had designed a series of paved streets illuminated by electric streetlamps and lined with theaters in flamboyant styles with alluring names (the Chinese Garden, the New Lyceum, the Little Theater, the Black Rose), including, in addition to dramatic theaters, a vaudeville theater, a concert hall, an opera house, and a nickelodeon.

Beneath the three levels, and entirely ignored by the journalists, lay the basement, the true bottom of the Dressler, which housed the electric plant, the steam plant, and a warren of workrooms for the maintenance staff.

From the artful rooms and subterranean paths of his high hotel Martin sometimes liked to remove himself in order to look up at the great mass of the building, pierced on each of its facades by an exterior court. It was as if he wanted to hold it all in his eye in a single glance. But what he saw in that glance gave way with a rush to all that he couldn’t see, so that the unseen courts became filled with flowerbeds and gravel walks, the high-arched main entrances on the side streets were immediately connected by a block-long gallery leading to the elevator lobby, each room revealed its furniture, and below the ground, invisible but seen, people walked in the paths of the courtyard and the aisles of the Shopping Arcade and the streets of the Theater District until Martin seemed to hold in his mind the entire contents of the building — and almost reeling under the weight of images he would return inside with a sense of seeking relief from an attack of dizziness.

Martin had taken a modest apartment for himself and Caroline on the sixteenth floor, facing the river, and a second apartment, adjoining theirs, for Emmeline and Margaret. It was Emmeline who understood: the move from the Bellingham to the Dressler had nothing to do with a desire for luxurious living and everything to do with being on the spot. Martin needed to take possession of his creation, to feel it working all around him and through him. He had given the actual job of management to James Osborne, whom he hired away from the Vanderlyn; at first Emmeline had refused the offer of assistant manager, but after a week of brooding she accepted with the understanding that it was only a trial. Daily Martin consulted with Osborne and Emmeline, weekly he attended the meeting of the manager and the department heads, but his passion was to inhabit the Dressler as fully as possible. He ate meals at each of the seven restaurants and tearooms, spoke to the linen-room attendants and seamstresses and chambermaids, sat in the main lobby and listened to guests from behind his newspaper. He examined the steam plant and electric plant in the massive basement beneath the theaters. He strolled in the underground courtyard, bought neckties and umbrellas in the Shopping Arcade, took Caroline and Emmeline and Margaret to a melodrama at the Black Rose. Emmeline had quickly become ardent in her loyalty to the Dressler and often accompanied Martin on his rounds; once, stopping abruptly on a street in the Theater District, she seemed about to say something and then to change her mind. “A penny for your thoughts,” Martin lightly said. Emmeline hesitated a moment before answering. “I was thinking,” she said, “about the castle in the forest, that night,” and Martin was cast suddenly back to the lantern-lit columns, the ladders going down, the moon-glittering edge of the pit.

Although all three underground levels were a striking success, the Theater District in particular was attracting enthusiastic audiences, who after the performances liked to stroll along the cut-stone sidewalks of the six underground streets lit by electric streetlamps and lined by theaters glowing with electric signs. People liked to drink coffee and wine at the two outdoor cafes, or to sit on the slatted wooden benches of a small lamplit park beneath artificial elms, where they could admire the handsome views at the end of each street — views that were in fact large murals painted onto the foundation walls by a commercial artist named Clement Ward who was noted for his skill in depicting urban scenes, especially night scenes showing meticulously drawn cast-iron streetlamps, El stanchions rising to overhead tracks, and the windows of crowded, smoky saloons. Emmeline agreed with Martin that two more cafes were necessary, for many theater-goers preferred to linger in the artificial streets rather than return to the Empire Bar on the first floor or ride to the roof garden under the stars; and Martin discussed with one of the hotel engineers the possibility of fitting the ceiling of the Theater District with very small, very dim electric lights, to create an effect of starlight.

The roof garden was itself a popular spot, with its railed promenade, its flower gardens and small orchard of fruit trees, its scattering of gazebos and Swiss chalets, its red and blue and green Japanese lanterns, and its open-air restaurant of small round tables and canework chairs beneath a roof supported by white wooden posts joined by scrollwork. One rainy summer night when Martin stepped under the roof with Emmeline he saw that the wind was blowing the rain across the floor, so that customers were huddling in one corner. The next morning he arranged for the installation of protective metal screens on spring rollers, which could be lowered during storms.

A few days later Martin asked Emmeline to walk with him from the roof garden down to the boiler room, located in one of the basement divisions beneath the underground theaters. As they descended from landing to landing, Martin was struck by the monotony of the descent: each major stairway landing faced a row of elevator doors and had on each side a door with a window that led to a corridor, while between the elevator landings the stairway turned once to form a secondary landing with a potted plant. The plants exasperated Martin. By the time he reached the main lobby he had decided to have them replaced by varied arrangements of couches, lamps, and bookshelves, so that those who chose to walk would be able to rest along the way. The neat, boring elevator landings posed a more difficult problem. Emmeline suggested artwork of some kind, perhaps framed paintings, and it was Rudolf Arling who took it up, turning over the idea and shaping it into a plan that seized Martin’s interest: in keeping with the theatrical nature of the roof garden and the third underground level, each landing would be designed to convey a different atmosphere. The walls of one landing would be hung with fishing nets and starfish and illuminated by green-blue light, another landing would be supplied with an Ionic column and wall murals of ruined temples and blue sea, a third would have a papier-mâché Indian in authentic garb against a background of thick pine trunks and winding forest paths, the whole bathed in a dark green woodland light.

Although Martin spent a good part of his day inspecting his hotel, talking with workers, and in general considering ways to improve the operation of the Dressler and the well-being of his guests, he also continued his habit of taking long walks in the neighborhood. He liked to follow the progress of excavations, to examine the facades of half-built apartment houses sheathed in scaffolding. Often he would pause thoughtfully before vacant lots. A great burst of building was taking place on the Boulevard, recently renamed Broadway, in anticipation of the new subway that would run under its entire length, but Martin had his eye on a stretch of empty land on Riverside Drive, some ten blocks north of the Dressler. He had reached an understanding with Lellyveld and White, who owned the land and were pleased with the financial reports from the Dressler, and one day after lunch he began meeting again with Rudolf Arling.

All such matters Martin discussed with Emmeline — at lunch, in her office during the day, and at dinner in the main dining room with Caroline and Margaret. Often the four of them took a stroll in the underground courtyard after dinner, after which Caroline would return to her rooms. Margaret was concerned about Caroline. She had seemed so happy in her new apartment with its lovely view, she had looked forward to exploring the new hotel, which she referred to as the Castle — and really, if you thought about it, she was just like a princess in a castle, married to a powerful prince — but she had gradually returned to her old habits, more and more she had confined herself to her apartment, and now you could scarcely coax her to take an after-dinner stroll in the courtyard. And Margaret Vernon, who had been fiddling with her dress collar, would look sharply at Martin, as if to surprise in him the secret of Caroline’s behavior, while Martin, who had grown skeptical about Caroline’s capacity for pleasure, but who at the same time wondered irritably whether he was to blame for not loving her enough, would answer with a touch of impatience that Caroline was welcome to do as she liked.

“Of course it’s all very well to let Caroline go her own way,” Margaret said one night, while brushing something from the sleeve of her dress. “Especially when her own husband and sister prefer each other’s company.”

Martin felt something burst in his neck. “What the devil is that supposed to mean? Em and I have business to discuss — lots of it. If Caroline showed a second’s worth of interest in all this—”

“Well I just think it’s a shame, that’s all,” Mrs. Vernon said, giving a sigh in the manner of an actress on the melodrama stage as she rose from her seat; and turning to Emmeline she said, “Now don’t stay up late, dear. It’s very bad for your health.”

Martin watched Margaret Vernon walk away and then turned to Emmeline. “What the devil was that all about?”

“I suppose I do monopolize you,” Emmeline said.

“Oh, wonderful. Caroline has no interest in anything that concerns me, but because I’m her husband I’m supposed to prefer her company to yours.”

“It would seem reasonable. Please keep your voice down.”

Martin lowered his voice. “It’s not reasonable. It’s unreasonable. Your mother is being unreasonable. What does she expect me to do? Sit in my parlor all day playing euchre with her and Caroline?”

“Still, I don’t like it when you speak to her like that.”

“And the way she speaks to me? Do you like that? ‘Of course it’s all very well.’ Who the deuce does she think she’s speaking to?”

“Shall we walk?”

A few nights later Margaret Vernon returned to the subject of Caroline. Martin, stiffening, stared straight ahead while he prepared to tamp down his anger, but Margaret Vernon made no effort to suppress her excitement. Looking from one to the other from behind her rapidly fluttering blue-and-green silk fan, she announced that Caroline had found a friend.

“A friend!” said Martin, irritated at the sound of false heartiness in his voice. “And who may that be?”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” Mrs. Vernon somewhat mysteriously replied.

When Mrs. Vernon had left, Martin looked at Emmeline. “What do you make of it?”

“It isn’t as if Caroline doesn’t make friends,” Emmeline said. “She’s actually rather good at it, when she wants to be.”

“Then why doesn’t she ever want to be?”

“Well, she has you.”

Martin looked at her. “Well yes. She does have me. And now she has a new friend.”

“So it would seem.”

“And what does that mean?”

“Oh, nothing. I’ve seen these little friendships of Caroline’s. Shall we walk?”