The London Hilton on Park Lane was not a hotel we ever lived in. But we did spend a fair amount of time there for two reasons: Mother’s best new friend in London, Mary Broomfield, was the hotel’s upper class consierge and Trader Vic’s was in the basement.
The hotel was built in 1963 in the swanky Mayfair section of London and towers over Hyde Park (it remains the tallest hotel in London). In 1967 the Beatles met the Mararishi Mahesh Yogi there and in 1975 the IRA bombed the place killing two and injuring 63 including Mary who lost hearing in one ear. Trader Vic’s was the faux Polynesian bar chain (which originated in San Francisco, I believe) whose big, colorful, fruit-garnished drinks and Tiki mugs were an irresistible draw for teen expat wanna be grown-ups like me and Robbie and our crew from ASL (The American School in London).
After Mother had our place on Park Avenue packed up and before she announced we were moving to London, we lived at the Croyden Hotel at 12 East 86th Street just off 5th Avenue for a few months. This little newstand (and its candy) was the hotel’s highlight for Robbie and me. We bought Tiger Beats and Chunky Candy bars and tried to avoid troubling questions like why did we leave our old house and where were we going from here.
I used to say, after my mother divorced my step-father, that we changed addresses the way other people changed storm windows. An important part of this peripatetic lifestyle–sublet flats and leased apartments and houses from Park Avenue in New York to Sloane Square in London to Fresh Pond Parkway in Cambridge–was the hotel. Hotels were a bridge into new cities and countries, between addresses within cities. Sometimes they would serves us as an address or home and other times as a reminder of what a home could be–an oasis in an unfamiliar, often foreign, world. I sometimes feel that I feel more at home in hotels than homes because no matter where they are–Morocco or Omaha–or what kind of place–four star luxury or Best Western–they have, at a minimum, a bed, a bath and clean towels.
The original Ritz Hotel in Paris–the cornerstone of what would become the Ritz-Carlton chain–was founded by Swiss hotelier Cesar Ritz and chef August Escoffier in 1898 overlooking the Place Vendome in Paris. Proust, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Edward VII, Coco Chanel and Marie of Roumania were just a few of the wealthy, royal and famous who stayed there. The chain (named also for the Carlton Hotel in London) expanded into the United States (New York, Philadelphia and Atlantic City) in the early 1900s. My step-father Oliver Rea was born at the Ritz-Carlton in New York in the twenties. The Ritz-Carlton in Boston (overlooking the Boston Common) was not originally a part of the chain’s expansion. It was a 1926 real estate development that was originally begun as the luxury Mayflower apartment building but was finished, thanks to the persuasiver personality of Boston’s mayor James Michael Curly, as the 300 room Ritz-Carlton hotel and opened in 1927.
We did not live at the Ritz-Carlton in Boston, but we spent a fair amount of time there. Mother would meet “ladies” there for tea or beaus for cocktails. Our fairy-ex-stepfather would stay there when he came to town to get us settled or “fix” some problem (before the final fall-out) and sometimes we would just go for supper or tea to feel at home in a strange new city.
We used to see an old woman there dressed in Victorian mourning clothes. She lived in the hotel and ate supper by herself every night. I imagined that, like me, she felt that even living by yourself in a hotel you are never alone–a comforting thought. I’ll be talking about hotels all week this week but I’ve already posted about one special hotel in which a fun scene from Chanel Bonfire was set: The Hotel Sydney Opera. Here’s a link to that March 11th post! http://chanelbonfire.blogspot.com/2013/03/hotel-sydney-opera-in-pairs.html
Ossie Clark (left) with his wife Celia Birtwell and Royal College of Art friend David Hockney (right)
When Mother moved us to London and she began her wacky expat divorcee phase, her wardrobe expanded and in some ways exploded with the flamboyant free flowing fabrics and radical cuts of Enlgish designer Ossie Clark (The King of King’s Road) and his wife, textile designer Celia Britwell. She may have seen his clothes at Henry Bendel in New York (they bought his first collection) but she fell in love with them in London.
His work came of age in the 60s and became the look and style of the 70s influencing Yves Saint Laurent, Anna Sui and Tom Ford among others. His classic lines done for Radley are still worn by Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell and, of course, by me and Robbie and our friends in the Chanel Bonfire party.
It may seem strange that an eight or nine year old girl’s two memorable fictional icons are Eloise and Antoine Doinel the boy in les quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows) but there you are — my childhood in New York was not usual or often appropriate. I do not remember the year exactly (’68, or ’69) that my stepfather rented Andy Warhol’s house in South Hampton but I do remember that in addition to whip cream fights and swimming and other exercises to introduce Robbie and me to his children from his first marriage, he showed a series of Truffaut movies on a screen in the living room. Mother and Oliver’s relationship was already quite volatile and would get much worse, end and then get better but I remember watching the troubled Antoine as he listened to his mother and stepfather fight and feeling that I knew how he felt. The film ends with a freeze-frame of his face at the beach and it stuck with me through that summer and forever — even as I finished the final scene of Chanel.
It was no wonder Mother had been miserable in the wild west of the Dakota when the Upper East Side was rocking with places like Maxwell’s Plum the original and quintessential singles bar of the late 60s and early 70s. While it may have been unusual for seven and eight year old girls to be seen at La Grenouille, it was probably a bit of a shock for some patrons to find Robbie and me at Maxwell’s. Opened in 1966 by Warner LeRoy whose grandfather was Harry Warner (one of the Warner Brothers) and whose father Mervyn was one of the most successful directors in Hollywood, directing everything from The Wizard of Oz (uncredited) to Quo Vadis and Mr. Roberts to, more germane to my life, Gypsy. Like his father’s film choices, Warner’s menu was all over the place from chili and burgers to wild boar and caviar. And like both sides of his show business family, LeRoy was a showman first and foremost, later taking his larger than life sensibilities to Tavern on the Green and The Russian Tea Room. While I’m sure mother was keenly aware of “the scene” at the bar where Warren Beatty and Barbra Streisand and countless other hot, sexy young people were picking each other up, for Robbie and me, Maxwell’s Plum was a circus of stained glass, Tiffany lamps and large ceramic animals hanging from the ceiling that made it feel like a grown-ups restaurant for kids or a restaurant where grown-ups could act like kids.
I can not for the life of me find a photo of Rumplemeyer’s Ice Cream Parlor which was housed at the St. Moritz on Central Park South but it was my first favorite place in New York. Begun as a restaurant originally called Rumplemayer’s and imported from Paris and run by the Viennese chef Rumplemayer, it was an original part of the hotel (built in 1930) in which the likes of Marlene Dietrich dined. By the late 60s when we moved to New York it was the most wonderful ice cream place filled with white painted iron, stuffed animals and leather booths. It was like Christmas. We’d go after skating lessons at Rockefeller Center or after a walk through the park from the Dakota or a trip to the slide at FAO Schwartz. Once we even went there for dessert after eating at the Auto Pub in the GM building…
The Auto Pub at the General Motors Building
…which was like having Christmas on top of Christmas. The Auto Pub was just a burger joint that had regular booth and table seating but also had seats inside sections of cars. In another room there was a kind of mini drive-in where you could eat and watch movies. Our mother’s second marriage may have been spirallying out of control but New York was not stingy with wonderful distractions for me and Robbie.
While our mother took us to the finer restaurants where she could see and be seen by fashionable New York dining on her alimony with her perfectly matched blonde daughters sometimes with an equally fashionable beau in tow, Robbie and I probably ate out more often at Schrafft’s on Madison Avenue (usually with a nanny). Part of a chain started by the Boston candy company, Shrafft’s was a piece of old New York. The first had been opened at the turn of the century (when Mother’s spot might have been Delmonico’s) and by World War One they were all over the city. Schrafft’s was a sort of upscale lunch counter or diner with wonderful cake and it’s own brand of ice cream. So important was Schrafft’s to the image of New York that it is hard to find a novelist, short story writer, poet or playwright who worked in the city and did not at least mention it or set a scene there. James Thurber’s meek clerk plots murder there in “The Cat Bird Seat”. Wallace Shawn mentions it in his elegiac taxi ride monologue in “My Dinner With Andre”. And of course there’s W.H. Auden’s lovely “In Schrafft’s” which you can see if you follow the link to my friend Tom Beller’s wonderful New York Literary site, Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood. http://mrbellersneighborhood.com/2004/01/in-schraffts
225 East 60th Street
Of course if Mother was with us, dessert or a treat after the park or ice skating would be more likely had at Serendipity. Opened in the mid-fifties by Stephen Bruce, it was famous and famously frequented by the likes of Marilyn Monroe and Andy Warhol from the very beginning. Our favorite thing was “Frrrozen Hot Chocolate” a drink so diabolically good that Jackie Kennedy tried to get the recipe so it could be served at the White House (she couldn’t). It’s somewhere between a milk shake and iced chocolate–a wonderful kind of chocolate frozen daquiri (without alcohol). They also served giant hot dogs and other fun things for kids that chic grown-ups like to have. And the inside was like a 19th century ice cream parlor in neon — what’s not to love?!
In addition to the high style and classic French presentation of restaurants like La Grenouille, La Caravelle and Lutece, 1960s New York offered another kind of “fine” dining experience — the clubby neighborhood classic, often a bistro with sidewalk seating. After my mother divorced my step-father and sold the apartment in the Dakota we moved to Park Avenue on the Upper East Side which was home to many of this other type of restaurant, probably because there were fewer people who cooked in this more rarified neighborhood. One of our regular haunts was the Isle of Capri. It was a “fancy” restaurant but run by a family, the Lamanna’s, who made everyone feel as if they were eating at a rich Italian relative’s house. In 1967 Craig Claiborne validated the restaurant’s local reputation by naming it “the best small Italian restaurant in New York” and giving it three stars in the New York Times. It was the kind of place where everyone seemed like a regular and so, for a while, were we. My and Robbie’s La Grenouille training and matching Florence Eiseman dresses made us pretty additions to the crowd and the simple plates of pasta–fettuccine alfredo was our favorite–and veal piccata we were given made us feel happy and at home.
The number of things my mother Georgann Rea did right as a mother could be counted on one hand with fingers to spare (for cocktail rings probably) but one of them was taking Robbie and me, at seven, eight and nine years old, to restaurants — very very good restaurants.
Her role as a young, glamorous trophy wife to a wealthy older man (my stepfather Oliver Rea) demanded she be seen in all the best places and sometimes with children in tow to prove that she was not just some piece of white trash with great figure and a certain je ne sais quoi men found irresistible.
And while normally she was not above using threats of violence, destruction of prized possessions or limiting visits with our father to get us to do things she wanted and behave as she saw fit, none of these tactics was necessary at places like La Grenouille.
Despite its funny name–“Frog? Why would you name a restaurant frog!?” –the exquisite, jewel box of a restaurant with its elegant patrons and severe waiters demanded decorum even from little girls who may have spent the morning digging for worms in Central Park or running around the apartment screaming like wild animals (provided Mother was out which, of course, she almost always was).
Naturally, all of the hushed politeness and pretty table settings didn’t stop me from trying to order a hot dog. But it did make hearing that that would not be possible from the handsome waiter not so bad and trying Clams Corsini even better and realizing that a chocolate souffle makes even the most wonderful chocolate cake seem like a brownie the best of all.
La Grenouille was opened in 1962 by Charles Masson and is one of the few temples of classic French cuisine from its mid-50s to early-70s heyday left in New York City. Charles McGrath did a wonderful piece on it in the September 2008 issue of Vanity Fair and you may follow the link to read it.
