Chicago Tribune, March 16, 1893
For visitors to the Exposition work had been commenced up to last night on 279 structures, containing the magnificent total of 33,945 rooms, in what is known as the World’s Fair district, comprising the territory south of Fortieth street, north of Seventy-fifth street, and east from the boundaries of the south parks and the Washington Park club. In securing the totals no attention has been paid to any hotel projects which thus far exist solely on paper. Some of the latter will doubtless be built, but they are too uncertain to be considered in cold figures and tables. Nor have any hotels been included which will cater directly to World’s Fair trade but which were constructed prior to six months It is immaterial for what purpose the buildings will be used after the Fair. Some will be torn down and others given over to residences and flats. Just at present they are all hotels, and must be counted in when Chicago’s capacity to entertain next summer’s visitors is being computed. Private residences, where one or more rooms will be rented, and hotels built before the World’s Fair period will increase the number of available rooms in the Exposition district to nearly if not quite 50,000.
Hotel men state that visitors will average two to a room. If this be correct, 100,000 people can walk to the Exposition quarters provided for them from them and walk back in the evening. No World’s Exposition has ever before seen such preparations for the crowds. Chicago will be as unsurpassed in its hotel accommodations as in the grandeur and magnitude of the Fair.
Hotel Accommodations Doubled.
Indeed, the climax in the World’s Fair hotel business has been reached in the vicinity of Jackson Park. The total capacity of the hotels in the business district of a great city more than duplicated in six months at a point far distant from all permanent patronage! Hotel men have been astounded at what was being done in the vicinity of the Fair. They have given warning that the craze must bring disaster. Underwriters have looked over the field in perplexity, and then, as the easiest way out of the dilemma, have named rates which meant that they would not take the risks at all. The furniture and house furnishing companies have drawn the lines of credit so tightly that much inconvenience resulted. Nothing could stop the craze for the World’e Fair hotels.
Far more construction is now being done within a mile of the fence around Jackson Park than in the park itself. The rush of work is far greater on the hotel structures then on the Fair buildings. Many contractors are racing against time to get through by May 1, and it is said that not a few of them been distanced already. They will be have fortunate if they complete their work by June 1.
It is the country which is building the hotels around Jackson Park, for the people who are coming to the Fair are putting up a good part of the money. Warnings, lack of insurance, stringent credit, and the need of implicit trust in the honesty of hotel projectors have not topped the great flood of funds. The boomers of Oklahoma were not more resistless.
Work of the Agents.
But the rush has been tremendously augmented by hundreds of agents been sent from one end of the agents who have been sent from one end of land to the other. They have been abroad these two years. They have sung one song. It was the absolute necessity of securing accommodations at the Fair far ahead if visitors were to have a place to sleep. It is to be feared that truth was not always respected by these agents. They often had their credentials from some incorporated company with high-sounding titles. They promised the best of accommodations at reasonable figures. All they assed was that the bills should be paid in advance. Some concerns offered memberships in clubs which entitled the holders to accommodations at regular rates. Others sold stocks, and when a prospective visitor bought a share he also secured rooms for a week or tro. He was to be made to feel that came proprietor and guest in one round.
Projects to draw dollars out of Fair visitors were conceived by the hundred last year. Many capitalists and men of high position became interested in them. Being incorporated, the investors ran no risk except losing what money they put in. If the schemes came out all right they stood an excellent chance of getting a big profit. Men who owned vacant property near the Fair saw golden opportunities to secure improvements at a low cost. Others who entered upon the hotel projects were of that class of impecunious speculators who are at the front the instant a boom shows itself. The list of the people who are back of these hotel enterprises would show a wonderful composite. The history of the “promotion” of some schemes would make an interesting chapter in financiering.
While the schemer has been right on deck a large majority of the propositions presented to owners of real estate around the park have been business purely. Men believed that it was a proper time to improve their holdings and looked more to the future than to the immediate present.
Some Schemes Probably Visionary.
Out of the large number of people who have become interested in these projects it would be unreasonable to suppose that some knaves would not develop. It is possible that some honest folk have been entrapped into schemes which will prove too heavy to be carried out Ou the basis of the capital at command and will meet with disaster, patrons who have paid in advance Prospective being the heaviest losers. All of this was to have been expected in any community. It may be that some of the enterprises will be conducted in a way which will bring odium upon the city and the Fair.
It is still a little early to condemn any as being fraudulent, for work may be commenced at this late date on temporary wooden structures which will be ready in time. It is the opinion of people who have looked over the ground carefully that the most complaint will come from the character of the accommo-dations. While some of the structures will have modern hotel appointments, many of them will be without elevators, electric bells, water conveniences, and the necessary sanitary arrangements. Dining-room and kitchen appliances may not be half what they ought to be for the number of people who have engaged quarters.
It is also the opinion of these experienced hotel men that due regard has not been paid in some structures to the means of egress in case of fire. The City Building Department has had three inspectors in the World’s Fair district, and it is claimed that the structures have been closely. inspected. At the present time confidence in the Building Department is not such as to accept this inspection as a finality. It is claimed that the World’s Fair officials should examine thoroughly every hotel structure in walking distance of the park and report obvious faults to the City Building Department, which would have the lawful authority to order requisite changes. In the same inspection the sanitary, arrangements could be looked into and defects reported to the City Health Department. As the excuse for this inspection will be the fact that the Fair is in a degree responsible for the hotels around the park, and that a fire disaster there would do it irreparable injury. The grievances of people who consider themselves duped or defrauded at these hotels will not be merely against those really at fault, but against the Fair and all Chicago.
City Ordinance Needed.
One of the most effective means of preventing dissatisfaction is said to be the passage of an ordinance by the City Council prescribing that the price per diem of every room in Chicago hotels be posted on the inside of the room door, the charge to be for one, two, or more persons. The advertised rates of hotels are but slight indications of what they really charge. A hotel may announce that its rates are $3 and upwards. It may have but one room at $3. It may charge $6 for small rooms on the top floor. The guest if he wait until he is ready to leave before finding out the price of his room has no recourse but to pay. In many States laws are in force requiring the posting of the price of rooms in hotels, just as cards of legal carriage hire are kept in hacks. Hotelkeepers frequently adopt the plan of their own accord to save disputes at the cashier’s window.
It is believed that no one measure would go as far to prevent dissatisfaction among the city’s guests the coming summer as the passage of such an ordinance before the opening of the Fair. Visitors could find no reasonable fault with hotel charges under such circumstances. If they do not like their quarters at the posted price they are free to go elsewhere, unless they have paid in advance. If they have paid their money for rooms months before and do not like what they get when they reach here there is no remedy. Should there not be a divergence between what traveling agents have promised and the accommodations actually provided in many instances the city will be indeed fortunate.
“No one who investigated the question,” a veteran hotel man said, “doubts that the city will have ample accommodations for all the people who come to Chicago next summer. Even with the biggest crowds there will be rooms left vacant. The scare which traveling agents have spread through the country about Chicago being short of hotels and rooms is not well grounded and never has been. There has never been any necessity for people paying months in advance the full price of their rooms. But as so many of them have the Fair and city should step in and protect them as far as possible. I don’t want to raise any scare about fraudulent schemes, nor cause annoyance to people who have advanced their money in good faith for rooms and board, but now is the time for Chicago to meet this hotel question squarely and fearlessly. The police inspection which Maj. McClaughry has instituted is worthless. Experienced hotel men should be employed by the Exposition to visit every structure near the park and pass upon the arrangements for fire and sanitation.”
THEY WILL RECEIVE GUESTS.
List of World’s Fair Hotels Already Built or in Course of Construction.
For six weeks the Hotel World has had one of its reporters in the World’s Fair district watching the hotel projects materialize in actual construction. From his report of structures, either completed or under way up to last night, the appended list has been completed. The absence of the name of any hotel concern which has accepted money in advance for accommodations from this list does not imply fraud. There is time yet for the erection of temporary struetures. The list is only an indication that the hotels named will do business. The street bounding Jackson Park on the north is Fifty-sixth and the one on the south is Seventy-first. In the list the nearest east and west street is given as the location, whether the hotel is on the street named or not. Counting eight blocks to the mile, visitors who have engaged rooms can compute easily the distance, north and south, from the park. The list is as follows:
What The Hotels Are Like.
Brief Descriptions of the Quarters Where Visitors Will Be Lodged.
A brief description of the World’s Fair hotels would cover a deal of paper. The temporary structures are of wood or of staff. Where the buildings are to be continued in use as large family hotels or apartment houses stone has entered largely into the construction.
The largest of the hotels in the Great Eastern, which will cover the entire block bounded by Sixtieth and Sixty-first streets and St. Lawrence and Champlain avenues. The building was extended on the street lines, with a great court in the center of the block. Built of staff, its general appearance will resemble that of the Fair buildings in the park. It will have 1,100 rooms and occupy a space of 300×600 feet. It is claimed to be the largest hotel in the world and to have accommodations for 2,500 persons. It is to be constructed around four courts, in which will be dining-room and kitchen, servant apartments, and gardens for the use of guests. One of these courts is 100 feet square. In the rear of the hotel is a summer garden, 200×300 feet. The cost will be $200,000, and Copeland Townsend, formerly of the Palmer House, will be manager.
The Tower Hotel, on Woodlawn Terrace, between Stony Island and Hope avenues, is 80×125 feet, with six stories and basement, of stone and brick, and contains 200 rooms. It has a steel tower, 50 feet square at the base and 210 feet high, in which aro two elevators.
The Hotel Endeavor, on Bond avenue, Seventy-fifth street, and the lake front, is a large temporary structure, intended as the headquarters of the various Christian Endeavor societies. It is in the form of a hollow square, surrounding a court 217×243 feet, in which is a chapel for concerts, lectures, and meetings. It is three stories, and has eight towers of four stories each. There are 620 rooms and a dining-room 60×200 feet.
The Fraternity, on Seventy-first street, opposite Bond avenue, is a temporary frame building. 190 feet square, three stories high, containing 330 rooms. An addition is being erected to contain 170 rooms.
The Aldine Hotel is a four-story and basement structure of pressed brick, is 112×165 feet, with 850 rooms, and located on Oglesby avenue near Sixty-sixth street. The dining-room will seat 250 persons.
The Great Northwest Hotel, Madison avenue and Sixty-eighth street, is four stories high, 150×200 feet, and contains 600 rooms.
The Manitoba Exhibit Hotel, Stony Island avenue, near Fifty ninth street, is a four-story frame, 90×240, with 300 rooms. There is an exhibit hall, 60×120, to contain the exhibits of the Manitoba Government.
The Hotel South Shore, Bond avenue and Seventy-third street, is one of the largest. It is a four-story frame structure covered with metal lathing and staff, containing nearly 1,000 rooms. The main building is 110×374 feet. There is to be an auditorium, with a seating capacity of 1,500, where religious services will be held.
The Security, Seventy-third street and Stony Island avenue, is a four-story frame, 120×136, of 350 rooms. It is intended for the accommodation of foreign delegations, mostly from Vienna.
For Veterans.
The Hotel Veteran, opposite the Security, is a four-story frame, 120×327, of 700 rooms. It will have barracks, rooms for meetings, and is intended for G. A. R. men and their families.
The Exposition Depot Hotel, Seipp avenue and Seventy-first street, is a three-story frame, 130×300, with 400 rooms.
The Louisiana, opposite the Exposition Depot Hotel, is a four-story frame, 10×163, with 300 rooms.
The Family Dormitory, Seventy-fifth street and Yates avenue, is a two-story frame, 150x 450, with 700 rooms. A wing, 60×110, will contain the dining-room and kitchen.
The Knox World’s Fair Hotel, Seventy-ninth street and Duncan avenue, is a two-story frame, 594 feet on the avenue and 334 feet on the street, each wing 30 feet wide. It will contain 386 rooms, and an addition may be constructed, making the total number of rooms 600.
Leland’s Chicago Beach Hotel, Fifty-first street and East End avenue, is a six story brick, 52×380, with wing 52x`170, and contains 400 rooms. The dining room, 75×125, and kitchen, 60×75, will be in a separate building.1
The Vermont, Fifty-first street and Cottage Grove avenue, is an eight-story brick, 100×110, with over 300 rooms.
Hotel Renfost, Cottage Grove avenue, between Fifty-first and Fifty-second streets, is of chocolate colored brick, with stone trim-mings, seven stories high, and with 400 rooms.
Hotel Dunlap , 200 feet on Sixty-third street and 167 on Madison avenue, is of pressed brick and brown stone, marble hallways, and rooms finished in antique oak. It is five stories high and an imposing structure con-taming 170 rooms.
The Waukesha, Sixty-fourth street, from Hope to Grace avenue, is 100×190, has 300 rooms, is of buff brick, stone trimmings, four stories high, and an imposing structure.
The Pullman, at the Fifty-fifth street entrance to the Fair, is among the finest in the district. It is large, conveniently arranged, and beautifully furnished.
One of the best of the permanent hotels is that of W. W. Ingram, northwest corner of Washington avenue and Sixtieth street. It is a six-story brick and basement structure, 106×156 feet. The dining-room will seat from 1,500 to 1,800 persons, and 8,000 people can be fed daily. It has steam heat, elevators, electricity, and all modern conveniences.
The Vendome club has a fine building at Oglesby avenue and Sixty-second street, 90×160, with eight stories and basement, of Bedford stone and brick, with 300 rooms. the roof will be a garden where refreshments will be served.
Hotel Monroe, Monroe avenue, between Fifty-fifth and Fifty-sixth streets, is a six-story stone with terra cotta trimmings, 150×175, and has 670 rooms. It will cost nearly half a million, and is one of the finest in the locality. The court is entered by a driveway, the floors are mosaic, the winscoting is marble and there is a marble stairway.
Hotel Thomas No. 1, Sixtieth street and Madison avenue, is of Portland granite, four stories, 100×150, and contains 800 rooms. It has marble hallways, electricity, and steam heat, and after the Fair will be converted into seven-room flats.
Hotel Thomas No. 2, Ellis avenue and Sixtieth street, is similar to “No. 1,” 61×155, has 214 rooms, and is four stories high.
Hotel Thomas No. 3, Sixtieth street, between Drexel and Wharton, is also similar to “No 1,” six stories high, 41×87, and with 114 rooms.
Hotel Boston, Fifty-fifth street and Jackson avenue, four stories, brick and stone, has 175 rooms.
The Raymond & Whitcomb Grand will be completed if a present injunction can be dissolved. It will be on Fifty-ninth street, between Madison and Washington, of buff
brick, fronting 300 feet on the Midway Plaisance, and with 500 rooms.
The Woman’s Dormitory, Ellis avenue, between Sixty-second and Sixty-third streets, is a large frame structure, with 800 rooms. They will be 7×9 or 9×10 each, for single occupants mostly.
The World’s Inn, one of the largest in the district, and fireproof, is now rapidly approaching completion. It is on Midway Plaisance at the Fair entrance, and contains 800 rooms. The entire framework is of steel beams.The walls and all the partitions are of fireproof tile. It fronts 300 feet on the plaisance, and from this main building eight wings, each 240 feet long, extend back. As they are not connected at the rear perfect light is obtained for every room. The building is said to be the largest hotel of its kind ever erected. The owners are Chicago contractors and manufacturers and everything composing the building was made here. The kitchen, electric light plant, laundry and boilers are in separate buildings in the rear of the hotel. The manager will be Charles H. Leland.
CLASSIFICATION OF THE HOTELS.
They Differ Greatly in Capacity, Accommodations, Architecture, and Material.
Tabulated by their capacity to accommodate guests, the World’s Fair hotels make up this list:
Omitting the cheaper and smaller structures of less than twenty-five-room capacity the hotels can be classed by material used in construction as follows:
These startling totals give the capacity and construction of buildings either completed or under way. Since Feb. 15 not less than seventy of the buildings have been commenced. In the last week ground has been broken for a dozen. Until April 1 artisans will be at work at unexpected spots, and in a few days thereafter the balloon frames of temporary structures, which are to be torn down after having housed Exposition visitors, will be in place. It will be rushing work to get these tardy buildings ready for the opening of the Fair, but then Jackson Park has seen so much rush work that nothing seems impossible in that region. Contractors in the last two years have learned the science of getting things done in a hurry. A week even now makes a wonderful change in the landscape bordering on the park. The visitor who has not been to the Fair since midwinter would not recognize the territory from the train or cable car to the Fair entrances. The wide stretches of open prairie along Stony Island avenue are gone. Only now and then is there a vacant lot, and there is no telling how long it will be unoccupied. In the block between Seventy-third street. Seventy-third place, and Stony Island and Jefferson avenues three large buildings and one small structure, in all to contain 1,330 rooms, were commenced less than a fortnight ago and are already well up. This is a fair indication of the wonderful metamorphosis of the Jackson Park region since cold weather began.
Architecture Greatly Diversified.
In architecture there is an almost limitless range. From the modern family hotel, unex-celled in the costliness and luxury of its ap-pointments, to the long rambling wooden structure but for one summer only, there is abundance of room for intermediate types. are all there. Except with the temporary structures the question of what was to be done after the departure of the last Exposition visitor has been all important. The result will be that no one part of the city will have the number of first-class apartment houses as can be found near Jackson Park. That region will boast of unexcelled family hotels. Hundreds of flats will be calling for tenants May 1, 1894. In all probability that region would have become developed before the close of the present decade, had there been no World’s Fair in Chicago. The location of the Fair at Jackson Park only hastened the development. What might have taken many years to accomplish has come in one. It has been a furious, feverish growth, to be sure, but after Chicago has readjusted itself on the passing of the Exposition period real estate men say that no evil effects are likely to follow. Values of land, swelled up by the prospective profits of the Fair, will drop back to their normal level, but that level will be far above the one which prevailed before Jackson Park was selected by the Exposition directory.
Not less than 20,000 of the rooms in the hotels will remain and will be on the market for occupants next winter. Taken in connection with the immense amount of construction which has been pushed forward and in all parts of Chicago the last two years the magic development of the Jackson Park region will play an important part in rentals for a year or more.
Most of the hotel companies, which were organized to sell accommodations in advance and then to put up their buildings, will be wound up next fall and winter. Their property will be sold for what it will bring and the profits divided up among the stockholders. Some of the more substantial concerns will remain in the field. These look upon the Jackson Park region as well adapted for the family hotel business and they have taken advantage of the time to secure substantial aid from the country in the erection of their structures.
- Rand, McNally & Co.’s Railway Map of Chicago
1892
Chicago Tribune, May 6, 1893
With a view to learning the exact status of hotel prices for accommodation in Chicago at the present time The Tribune has caused the matter to be thoroughly investigated and presents in these columns the results of such inquiry.
The Tribune wishes it understood that it is the champion of the cause of tne visitors who come to see the great Exposition against all extortionists.
The Tribune will wage war against those schemers who are in the hotel business or any other business for the period of the Fair only and whose avowed purpose is to maintain exorbitant rates for ordinary entertainment or overcharge in any part.
The Tribune will promptly investigate charges of extortion which may be brought to is notice, by letter or otherwise, and will use every effort within its power to secure protection to the public from the exactions of those persons whose sole purpose is to take advantage of the necessities of visitors in order that they may increase the size of their private purses.
The inquisition of Tribune reporters has demonstrated that there are some of the hotels, both large and small, where no increase has been made in the scale of prices. There are many more in which the prices have been slightly advanced, but in these instances the claim is made that the action was necessary owing to the increased cost of provisions and service, and that the rate asked today will yield no larger profit than was considered reasonable under the old schedule.
There are, however, a large number of hotels of mushroom growth which have budded because of the Exposition and which are being operated with the knowledge that they must clear as much money during the next five months if they are to prove profitable as would ordinarily be expected in the same number of years. In one of these latter establishments The Tribune reporter saw the contract for furniture. The rooms cost complete, including the furniture, carpet, bedding, linen—in short, everything that will be supplied to the guests—just $48. The price of this room, without board, is $3 a day. If this room is kept filled it will pay for itself every sixteen days.
Many Go Above Reasonable Rates.
Not only are the houses which are best known as “strictly World’s Fair hotels”— that is, hotels which will cease to exist after the Exposition pushing the prices away above all reasonable limits, but some of the old and well established down-town places seem to have caught the fever, and in some instances have advanced their schedules 20 per cent or more. This has been done in spite of the fact that the majority of these extortionist taverns are not filled, but, as one manger expressed it, “We expect to make up for it by and by when the people come here and find that they must accept our terms it they wish a place to stay.”
Notwithstanding the fact that many of the hotels are starting the season with the idea of bolstering up and maintaining prices, which are much higher than the demand warrants, people visiting Chicago during this summer may rest assured that they can secure first-class accommodations at reasonable rates. If they are mulcted by the extortionists it will be their own fault. There are in Chicago thousands of rooms which have been prepared for the accommodation of visitors and hundreds of them are yet unengaged. In many of the hotels built to provide quarters for five or six hundred guests, not more than a dozen names appear on the registers, and the managers admit that they have but few rooms engaged in advance. Besides this there are probably a hundred or more hotel buildings now in process of construction which will not be finished until late in June or early in July, and when these are equipped they will increase the present accommodations from 5,000 to 10,000.
The Supply Over the Demand.
The status of hotel and lodging accommodations in this city today, as verified by Tribune representatives, is just this: The supply exceeds the demand overwhelmingly. The houses that are charging reasonable rates are doing the great bulk of the business, and even they are not filled to their fullest capacity. The extortionists have but few people in their houses and do not seem be booking any guests in advance. Hundred of private families have rooms for rent at reasonable prices and the majority of them are still vacant, owing to the fact that supply so greatly exceeds the demand. Again, thousands of rooms will be added to the already excessive supply within another month, and the owners of these will be looking for business.
The whole situation is merely that of supply and demand. There are today in Chicago more rooms than there are people to fill them, and in the face of these facts extortion cannot so succeed. It is certain that another month will bring the “high-priced” people to a realizing sense of their indiscretion if they expect to secure any patronage. Their hotels are at present more or less deserted, and ample room is available at a fair cost. If visitors to the World’s Columbian Exposition permit themselves to be imposed upon in the matter of outrageous charges for accommodations they will have no one but themselves to blame. There is plenty of room for all and at a reasonable price. One assignment of a hotel company has already grown out of this greed and its failure to realize expectations.
Boarding housekeepers who attempt extortion will also suffer. The Tribune means to ventilate abuses of this class as well as the hotel.
Chicago Tribune, May 6, 1893
HOW THE SCALE OF RATES RUNS.
Prices to Be Charged by Many of the World’s Falr Hotels.
The Park Gate Hotel at Sixty-third and Stony Island avenue and just opposite the Sixty-third street entrance to the grounds will advance its rates from $2 for a single room to $3 June 1, and from $3 for a double room to $5. The clerk made this announcement yesterday to those who called to inquire the rates. “If any one wants the American plan.” he added, “just add $2 a day to those rates. We run the café separate, but we will accommodate those that prefer to live that way.” This will make the rate after June 1 from $5 to $7 a day, according to the room.”
The Hotel Burton, at Madison avenue and Fifty-first place, expects to raise its prices June 1 if there is a crowd on hand at that date. The proprietors are three brothers, whose name is the same as the hotel. The hotel will not be ready for business for ten days yet. The prices announced to callers yesterday were these: Large rooms with two full-sized double beds suitable fur four persons, $4; medium-sized rooms with double bed and also, if desired, suitable for three persons $3; single rooms with double bed for two persons, $2.50. One proprietor stated that he could not tell what the prices would be after June 1. The structure is what is generally called a modern flat building, and is heated by steam. It is claimed to be fireproof. There is a café in the basement, which, it is claimed, will be run on a reasonable basis.
The Waukesha is located at Sixty-fourth street and Grace avenue. It is a large building and has a capacity of 800 guests. It is not completed yet, but when finished will be run as a first-class hotel. The prices are from $2 a day for a single room to $5. Manager Jones said that these prices would predominate through the Fair and that no advancement would be made. The building is equipped with elevators and all the conveniences and will be run on the European plan. A large number of the rooms have already been engaged. The proprietors have provided for an overflow by erecting a number of corrugated iron cottages on a vacant lot close at hand.
At Barron’s Suburban Hotel at Madison avenue and Sixty tirst street the manager said yesterday when applied to for rooms that there would be little chance to engage quarters with his house after next week. The hotel is an American bouse and the rates are $6 a day.
The Gilbert-Crafts World’s Fair Hotel, No. 6320 Madison avenue, takes care of its guests at rates ranging from $1 to $4 a day, according to the location of the room. The hotel is a plain brick structure. The proprietors say their rates will stand through the Fair season. A restaurant is run in connection with this hostelry at which a man can get a tenderloin steak, with potatoes, bread, and coffee, for 40 cents.
The Rosedale is a frame structure, being a dwelling house with a big annex in the rear. It is located at No. 6414 Star avenue and taxes its guests $1 and $1.25 for a room, allowing two persons in each. The rooms are plainly furnished. The café in connection with this establishment sells twenty-one meal tickets for $4.
Where There Is a Sliding Scale.
The Bell House is at Oglesby avenue and Sixty-first street. The clerk offered single rooms from $2 to $4.50 a day. Single rooms with one bed and one cot privilege can be obtained on the first and second floors for from go.o0 to 3o, whileon the third floor the same accommodations are offered for $3. Double rooms on the frat and second floors with two beds and one cot privilege range from $5 to $7, and on the third floor $5 even. Meals in the café are 50 cents each. These prices are said to be permanent.
The Lemont Hotel, No. 6235 Oglesby avenue, is a modern four-story building arranged to be used for an apartment house after the Fair. It is heated by steam and is comfortably furnished. Manager Gray offers his rooms for from $3 to $6 a day and will allow as many to occupy a room as desire. In a $4 room he will put two beds. The rates in the café are $2 a day.
“The Bankers” is much the same kind of a structure as the La Mout. It is at Madison avenue and Sixty-second street. Through May rooms are let at from $1 to $1.50 a day, but beginning with the first of next month prices will be advanced to from $3 to $5 a day. The rate in the café is $7 a week, and this rate will be permanent, according to the statement of the clerk.
The Hotel Byron, at No. 6326 Madison avenue, is a plain frame structure. The proprietor stated to one applicant for rooms yesterday that his prices were permanent. “I want to make some money, but I do not want to get rich too rapidly.” These are his rates: Rooms with double bed one person, $2; room with double bed, two persons, $1.50 each room; room with double bed and one cot, three persons, $1 each. He charges $1 for cot accommodations. There is no café in connection with this establishment.
The Dagmar, Sixty-fourth street and Madison avenue, is not quite completed. The manager said, however, he would take a few guests and had some of his rooms fitted up. The building is new, is made of brick, and is called fireproof. The rooms are offered at from $1 to $4 a day.
Some of the Expensive Ones.
Among the scores of hotels surrounding the World’s Fair grounds one of the most expensive is the Chicago Beach Hotel, at Fifty-first street and the lake. The prices are from $5 a day up.
The visitor can rest his weary, head on a pillow at the Averill apartment house, Ingleside avenue and Fifty-fifth street, at the rate of $1 to $1.50 a night. The kind of room offered will depend upon the crowd.
The Bell House, at Uglesby avenue and Sixty-second street, is prepared to accept guests at $1.50 and up a day. You can sleep and eat there for $3 a day.
Clark & Aaron of the Boston, at Fifty-fifth street and Jackson avenue, will allow two people to abide with them for $4 to $8 a day. This does not include board, however.
Hotel Ballard is the name of the house at Fifty-third street and Jefferson avenue, where $2 and anything above that price a day will be required of World’s Fair visitors.
The Davis Hotel 18 at No. 5421 Lake avenue. To get a room for a visitor will cost $2 a day. If meals are taken $5 a day will be the bill rendered.
The Manitoba, Fifty-ninth street and Stony Island avenue, gives its rates to prospective guests as $l and upwards. There is no limit at present to the “upward” movement.
The man with cash can sleep at the North Entrance Hotel, Madison avenue and Fifty-seventh street, at the rate of $14 to $17.50 a week. There are no World’s Fair passes given at this rate and the guest eats outside.
The Epworth, at Fifty-ninth street and Monroe avenue, has been built by Epworth League societies for the benefit of members. The hotel is on the European plan, with rooms at $1 a day. Non-members of the society will be charged $2 a day.
Pullman is the name of a hotel at Washington avenue and Fifty-fifth street. Rates $1.50 a day and upwards.
There are several Thomas hotels. They are known by numbers, one, two, and three, and are located on Sixtieth street. The rates are $1.50 a day and upwards.
The Windermere, Cornell avenue and Fifty-sixth street, can let guests have rooms for $2 a day and upward.
Rates $1.50 to $2.50 is the answer given at the Wilovid, No. 5811 Madison avenue, to all inquirers.
The World’s Inn is on Sixtieth street near the plaisance. It will cost $2 and upwards a day to live there.
The Woman’s Dormitory is at Fifty-second street and Ellis avenue. The rates are $1 and upward a day.
The White House is at No. 5463 Madison avenue. European plan prices are $1 to $3 a day.
Chicago Tribune, May 6, 1893
WILL SOON BEGIN A RATE WAR,
South Side Figures Too High to Be Maintained.
There are now completed, or nearly so, something like 140 hotels in what is called the World’s Fair district. These are the ones having over seventy-five rooms, and they are capable of accommodating 70,000 visitors at one time. The rates at many of these places are exorbitant—in fact, are higher than in the best class of hotels at ordinary times. The race to make a fortune out of the Fair by having a second-rate hotel at double prices has probably overreached itself and rumors of probable failure are now whispered in many places. The thing has been overdone undoubtedly, and it is expected that a cut rate war will be inaugurated in short order.
The rates are generally $1 to $5, $8, and even higher a day. The rates in many places mentioned in the appended list are for sleeping accommodations with the understanding that should the demand be great enough others are to be placed ip the same room. In a few places a room can be rented for a certain price and several people can occupy it, thus making the cost comparatively low, but the general plan seems to be so much each and to crowd all the people possible into the rooms. There seems to be no excuse for this extortion on the part of landlords of World’s Fair hotels. Chicago has always had a large hotel capacity. When the Democratic convention met here last June there was no lack of accommodations. At the October dedicatory exercises when it was estimated that 150,000 transients were in the city the capacity of the hotels was not seriously over-taxed. These World’s Fair hotels more than double—in fact increase three times the hotel accommodations at that time. This does not take into account hundreds of flat buildings and hotels of smaller than seventy-five rooms capacity.
Word has been passed around among the hotelkeepers in the vicinity of the gates of the Fair grounds to advance rates June 1 from $1 to $3 a day according to the class of the hotel and the original price of the rooms. Some of the proprietors have agreed to do it and others have positively refused; declaring that they will stand by their opening rate until the end of the Fair.
There is another class that proposes to wait aud see how business opens uD June 1, and if there is a rush they propose to advance rates and will keep advancing them as long as there is any demand for rooms at the prices they may elect to name.
One standing on the high platform of the Alley Elevated road station at Sixty-third street is at once impressed with the enormous outlay that has been made to house the visitors when he reads the hotel signs in every direction. It would seem from the number and the size of these hostelries that they could take care of a good many more people than would visit the Fair, and those innkeepers who are talking about advancing rates will be disappointed. Evidently those hotel men who have declined to fall in with the idea of pushing up the price are of the same opinion. The trouble is that the most of the hotels that have agreed to make a stiffer price have not accommodations that will warrant it.
The high-priced hotels are those that seem surest of success. In some instances these rooms have practically all been engaged. These are strictly first-class houses and furnish every modern comfort known to the hotel business. They have made contracts for their rooms and are not talking of advaneing the rate, and could not if they wanted to do so.
Chicago Tribune, May 6, 1893
FOR MILLIONAIRES ONLY.
The Lakota Hotel’s Rates from Four to Fifteen Dollars.
One of the new hotels built for the World’s Fair season seems to be operated upon the principle that only men with barrels will visit Chicago for six months. This is the Lakota—located at Thirtieth street and Michigan avenue. There is nothing particular in the locality to justify unusual prices, yet the managers seem to be “out for the gold,” if the ground plan with figures attached can be used as a criterion. Judging from the fact that $1,000 a month is considered a suitable figure for a parlor suite of three rooms, the rates may be classed as sufficiently elevated to suit the plethoric purses of the Panama Canal boodlers. The following rates for the rooms mentioned is taken from a floor plan furnished a room-seeker by the office. If you wish to spread yourself the corner parlors will be turned over to you for $15 a day. You can get this parlor, 17×22 feet, with a library 13×15, and a chamber 18×22 feet for $1,000 a month. A parlor 13×21 and chamber 12×19 cost $18 a day. Inside chambers, 13×15 and 13×16 feet, cost $4 to $6 a day. These are in the middle of the building and the windows are not on the street. Table board on the American plan $17.50 per week. One of the $6 rooms adjoins the elevator well and overlooks the laundry court.
If the World’s Fair visitor wants to live at the Metropole, on Michigan avenue and Twenty-third street, he must pay from $6 to $7.50 a day. That is much more than ordinary rates at the big down-town hotels, but is in keeping with the present heavy demands made by the houses that are attempting to clear a year’s profits in from one to two months.
Chicago Tribune, May 6, 1893
WILL NOT ELEVATE PRICES.
Figures Given by the Palmer, Grand Pacific, Sherman, and Victoria.
Among the highest priced hotels higher rates have been established in some instances, while in others there has been no advance. At the Palmer House, corner State and Monroe
streets, there are large cards displayed, on which is printed the following:
- Notice— There will be no advance in prices, at the Palmer House during the Fair discounts will be made during that period. Contracts for rooms during the Fair can now be made.
Inquiry as to the rates reveal the fact that rooms can be had on the European plan at $4 a day and upward, or board and room at $7 a day and upward.
The Grand Pacific, corner Clark and Jackson streets, has made no advance. A good room and meals will be furnished at from $4 to $6 a day for each person.
The Sherman House, corner Randolph and Clark streets, rates continue to be $4, $5, and $6 a day for each person, each to have a separate room if desired.
At the Victoria Hotel, corner Michigan avenue and Van Buren street, rooms, where people will consent to double up, can be had for $2 a day and upwards for each person, the price to be governed by the size and location of the room.
Chicago Tribune, January 17, 1894
FRAME WORLD’S FAIR HOTELS A BURDEN ON RISKS THEY EXPOSE.
Heavy Rates Charged for Policies on Good Property Because the Flimsy Structures Have Not Been Torn Down According to Permit Specifications—Provision in Several Lloyds’ Policies That Is Criticized as Hard Upon the Insured—Methods of the Ohio Fire Lloyds.
When the building permits for frame hotels in the vicinity of Jackson Park were issued it was with the proviso that they should be torn down after the Fair. The most of them, how-ever, are still standing and a menace to property surrounding them. The existence of these deserted hotels makes it difficult in all and impossible in some cases for owners of adjoining residences to get insurance. The rates on dozens of first-class residence risks have been advanced 200 to 300 per cent on account of exposures to two or three story fire-traps. The frame hotel builders scattered their structures indiscriminately through a fairly well built up residence district. These hotels impose a tax on $100,000 worth of property on increased premium rates. The people who, instead of making temporary improvement, built brick flat buildings and apartment houses in the vicinity of Jackson Park are placed in something like a false light so long as the frame shells are left standing. These World’s Fair hotels seem to afford material for the attention of the newly appointed representative of the underwriters on the Board of Building Inspectors.
Chicago Tribune, January 26, 1894
FIRE IN THE HOTEL THOMAS.
Loss of $27,000 to a World’s Fair Structure and Its Contents.
An alarm of fire from Sixtieth street and Madison avenue last evening, followed quickly by a 4-11, was caused by a blaze in the Hotel Thomas. The fire burned out the interior of the east half of the building facing Midway Plaisance. The building is a five-story stone structure and was erected by John S. Thomas as a World’s Fair hotel. The furniture of the entire building had been stored in the burned corner. No one had been in the building during the day except the engineer and two workmen in the basement. H. C. Griffin, the engineer, says his fire under the boiler was low all day. It is thought the fire started from an overheated steampipe near the stored furniture.
After an hour’s fight the fire was overcome. The damage to the building was $12,000. The insurance is $63,000. The loss on the furniture was $15,000; no insurance.
Chicago Tribune, March 25, 1894
VENDOME CLUB HOTEL SOLD.
One of the Most Prominent of World’s Fair Hostelries to Reopen.
The Vendome Club Hotel, one of the best built and equipped of the World’s Fair hotels, has changed ownership, having been sold by George W. Haines for Chapman Bros. to Messrs. Graham, Basnett, and Henry, of Jacksonville, Florida, Lockport, N. Y., and Chicago respectively. The building is an eight-story and basement fireproof building, covering 90×166 feet on the southwest corner of Oglesby avenue and Sixty-second street. It was built by Chapman Bros. at a cost of between $300,000 and $350,000 and furnished at an expense of $80,000. There are 116 apartments of two, three, and five rooms each with offices and parlors on the main floor. The basement contains the electric light and steam heating plants and three dining-rooms. The roof is decked for use as a summer garden and is reached by the elevators. Included in the transfer of the hotel is the southwest corner of Sheridan avenue and Sixty-second street, which is occupied by cheap frame structures.
In part payment for the hotel is given a tract of Florida lands in the Pensacola district at a valuation of something like $100,000. The hotel plant as it now stands is valued in the sale at $375,000. It has been vacant since the Fair, but will be opened as a fine family hotel by the new owners April 1.
Inter Ocean, August 21, 1894
WORLD’S FAIR HOTEL BURNS.
Gilbert and Craft’s Building Badly Damaged by Fire.
Gilbert and Craft’s World’s Fair hotel, at No. 6320 Madison avenue, was damaged by fire early last evening. The building had been unoccupied for several months and had been stripped of its furniture since the close of The Fair. The fire started in a pile of old mattresses on the first floor and burned through the upper stories and the roof. The loss is about $5,000.
The origin of the blaze mystified the police and firemen. It was discovered by neighbors, and had gained considerable headway before the engines reached the building. The structure is of frame and brick veneer, and was quickly eaten up by the flames. No one had been around the hotel, and although there is suspicion of incendiarism no clew to the guilty parties could be found.
The hotel was built during the spring of last year for World’s Fair purposes, L. A.
Gilbert, a Hyde Park real-estate and capitalist, becoming interested in the venture as senior partner. The structure faces 75 feet on Madison avenue and has a depth of 175 feet. Last night’s fire burned out the interior and damaged the roof. leaving the walls standing as a shell around the ruined timbers. About $20,000 was invested in the building.
1 The Leland Beach Hotel was renamed the Chicago
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