Since I’ve never left the continent, I have certainly spent my share of time in the hotels of North America. I’m now in Atlanta, where I’ve been for about 48 hours, as of this writing, and I’m staying at the Ellis, whose four star rating is seriously conservative (owing, probably, to the fact that it doesn’t have a driveway for limosines). It’s right in the best part of downtown, has actual, wooden furniture, really good fixtures, and the sort of art gallery washroom you associate with photography studios and, well, art galleries. It’s also nearly the cheapest hotel I have ever stayed in, owing most likely to the fact that it’s in downtown Atlanta, and not in New York City.
It may also be owing to the fact that it was home to the most deadly hotel fire in America, in 1946. It was then called the Winecoff Hotel, and 119 people died because it didn’t have fire escapes. Georgia Tech student Arnold Hardy won the Pulitzer prize for his photo of a woman jumping from the burning building, and the fire triggered a national requirement that buildings have fire escapes.
While in DC this week, I stayed in the Hinckley Hilton, where President Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley, Jr., who was attempting to impress Jodi Foster. Immediately after the shooting, Reagan was driven by limosine to George Washington University Hospital, where it was discovered that he had a punctured lung. He went immediately to surgery, and made a full recovery. The shooting happened at the rear entrance to the hotel, which is unchanged — it still looks just the way it did in the news footage.
I didn’t know about all this when I was booking these hotels, and I fear that having written about it here will make it seem as though this is some sort of morbid vacation.
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