End of The Old Lady

Facing Park Avenue, one block south of Grand Central Station, stands a venerable symbol of the Mauve Decade in Manhattan--the eight-story, red-brick Murray Hill Hotel, festooned with magnificent circular fire escapes, studded with four towers whence New Yorkers once could view their city. Like an aging dowager, the Murray Hill resisted change through the years. New Yorkers called it "The Old Lady," occasionally walked through its palm-dotted lobby or ate in its red-walled dining room, with splashing fountain and singing canaries, to evoke the feeling of a bygone era. Among surrounding skyscrapers, the Murray Hill stood out like a panoplied cavalry horse in a line of General Sherman tanks.

Last week change finally came to the Murray Hill: it was sold to new owners, who will tear it down after the war.

The Place. When it was built in 1884, the Murray Hill was the very last word in elegance, from the grey marble grand staircase to the dazzlingly newfangled electric lights that gleamed on the first two floors. There was a fireplace in every living room, a gilded chamber pot under every bed, a brass cuspidor in every room. The washstands were marble, with brass legs; many a wall was hung with imitation Fragonards and Watteaus. The largest and best suite was set aside for Grover Cleveland. When Cleveland went to the White House in March 1885, the food for the inaugural ball was rushed to Washington by special train from the Murray Hill's kitchens.

The hotel came to be a focal point for high society, for the world of letters and sport. J. P. Morgan Sr. walked from his home on 36th Street to sip coffee and smoke cigars in the lobby. Mark Twain, in his white suit, used its decorous billiard room; Tammany Boss Richard Croker gave small dinners behind closed doors, invariably ordering terrapin. President McKinley fell heir to the Cleveland suite; Jay Gould, Senator George Hearst and P. T. Barnum made it their headquarters.

On one class the owners frowned: stage folk. A few exceptions: Ellen Terry, Minnie Maddern Fiske, Henry Miller. Actors and actresses were apt to be a bit too gay. The Murray Hill stood for leisurely good living; whatever high jinks went on behind its walls were perhaps elaborate, but certainly decorous.

The Spirit. The Murray Hill's crinoline-&-lavender atmosphere was the expression of one man: Benjamin L. M. Bates. Son of a Manhattan hotel owner, Ben Bates evolved his philosophy of an elegant life when, as a boy, he watched his father's daily ritual in preparing punch from Medford Rum.* He started out at the Murray Hill as assistant night clerk, soon rose to manager. He saved his money, increased it by speculation. When the hotel went on the auction block, he held a mortgage on all the furnishings, became the natural and successful bidder. Ben Bates had one firm resolution: the Murray Hill must not change. He would not permit sandblasting of its dirtied outer walls: every brick was washed by hand. He spent half a million for renovations, but almost all went for duplicates of the original furnishings. Nothing new was added, except porcelain plumbing.

With Ben Bates in charge, the Murray Hill withstood all the onslaughts of time. Time & again Ben Bates turned down fabulous offers for his property. The guests stayed on until they died, one even dropping off peacefully while sitting in one of the lobby's overstuffed chairs. Occasionally the famous dropped in again: a porter recalls shining Warren Harding's shoes; Alf Landon took the Cleveland suite when he came to Manhattan in the 1936 campaign.

Ben Bates died in 1935; from then on the Murray Hill's doom was sealed. Today, the huge living rooms of the once palatial suites are dormitories filled with cots for weekending service men.

The Murray Hill did more than preserve the feeling of an era; it reflected the trends and changes in U.S. tastes in real estate. It was built for $1,000,000. Ben Bates bought it in 1910 for $1,796,500. In the booming '20s he turned down $6,500,000 for his palace. Today it is assessed at $3,200,000. Last week's sales price: $700,000.

*Ben Bates saved all that remained of his father's rum, kept it under lock & key. Until his own death, whenever he visited Hartford, Conn., where his father was buried, he took along a phial of the rum, ceremoniously poured it as a libation on his father's grave.

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