The Business
Done In It Is Stated To Be Above 1,500,000l. Per Annum.
There are 400
people employed at this establishment, which has even a telegraph office
on the premises, where a clerk is for ever flashing dollars and cents
along the trembling wires.
There were lace collars 40 guineas each, and
flounces of Valenciennes lace, half a yard deep, at 120 guineas a flounce.
The damasks and brocades for curtains and chairs were at almost fabulous
prices. Few gentlemen, the clerk observed, give less than 3l. per yard
for these articles. The most costly are purchased by the hotels. I saw
some brocade embroidered in gold to the thickness of half an inch, some of
which had been supplied to the St. Nicholas Hotel at 9l. per yard! There
were stockings from a penny to a guinea a pair, and carpetings from 1s.
8d. to 22s. a yard. Besides six stories above ground, there were large
light rooms under the building, and under Broadway itself, echoing with
the roll of its 10,000 vehicles.
The hotels are among the sights of New York. The principal are the Astor
House (which has a world-wide reputation), the Metropolitan, and the St.
Nicholas, all in Broadway. Prescott House and Irving House also afford
accommodation on a very large scale. The entrances to these hotels
invariably attract the eye of the stranger. Groups of extraordinary-
looking human beings are always lounging on the door-steps, smoking,
whittling, and reading newspapers. There are southerners sighing for their
sunny homes, smoking Havana cigars; western men, with that dashing free-
and-easy air which renders them unmistakeable; Englishmen, shrouded in
exclusiveness, who look on all their neighbours as so many barbarian
intruders on their privacy; and people of all nations, whom business has
drawn to the American metropolis.
The Metropolitan Hotel is the most imposing in appearance. It is a block
of building with a frontage of 300 feet, and is six stories high. I
believe that it can accommodate 1300 people. The St. Nicholas is the most
superb in its decorations; it is a magnificent building of white marble,
and can accommodate 1000 visitors. Everything in this edifice is on a
style of princely magnificence. The grand entrance opens into a very fine
hall with a marble floor, and this is surrounded with settees covered with
the skins of wild animals. The parlours are gorgeous in the extreme, and
there are two superb dining-rooms to contain 600 people each. The curtains
and sofa-covers in some of the parlours cost 5l. per yard, and, as has
been previously named, one room is furnished with gold brocade purchased
at 9l. per yard. About 100 married couples reside permanently at the St.
Nicholas; it does not, however, bear the very best reputation, as it is
said to be the resort of a large number of professed gamblers. Large as
these hotels are, they are nothing to a monster establishment at Cape May,
a fashionable summer resort in New Jersey.
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