The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-10-17
A CONTRAST In HOTELS.
In One You Pay 20 Cents Day, and
In the Other You May Pay $50.

w. z. Curtis in Chicago Record
The two largest, most costly and complete
hotels in the world are to be opened in New
York this month. One of them is situated
in Blocker street, near Broadway, and the
other at the corner of Fifth avenue and
Thirty-fourth street. One-the Mills hotel
is ten stories high, 200x100 feet in size, cost
$1,0OOOO0, has 1,564 lodging rooms, 200 bath
tubs, $50 wash basins and a dining room in
which $50 men may sit down to meals that
will cost them from to 80 cents. The
charge for lodgings is 20 cents day. The
baths and wash basins, with plenty of soap
and towels, are free.
The other is the Astoria, on the site of
the old Aston mansion. adjoining the Wal
dorf and under the same management. In
fact, the two will be practically the same
hotel except that William Waldorf Aston
owns one and John Jacob Astor the other.
Archways are cut through the party walls
upon every floor. There is to be only one
Office, one kitchen and no division any
where except in the rent and taxes. The
Waldorf is thirteen stories high and cost
over 100000 The Astoria has seventeen
stories available for guests. two for kitch-
ems and storage under ground and three
in the mansard roof and towers for serv-
lars more is being expended in furniture,
in addition to similar equipment of the Wal
dorf, which cost $4,000. Thus the two
hotels represent an investment of nearly
$4,000. 900. Together they contain 1,1S5 lodg-
ing rooms, 675 with baths, and 175 with par
lors or sitting rooms. There will be 1875
employees, more or less. on the pay roll.
OF these 125 will be in the kitchen, 450 in
the dining rooms, 200 chambermaids, 100
bellboys and clerks cashiers, 1aundresses,
porters, engineers. mechanics and electri-
clans make up the rest, including full or
chestra. One man will have nothing to do
but look after the clocks and that will keep
him busy.
The new ballroom in the Astoria is one
hundred feet square, without pillar, and
three stories high. The banquet room, or
the Aston gallery as they call it, will be
1O0x60 feet. The two are considered the fin
est rooms of their size in the world. No
palace in Europe contains any so beauti-
full. The dining rooms will seat $50 persons
without crowding, which Is 200 more than the
Mills hotel can accommodate, but every
thing at the Mills hotel will be just as neat
and wholesome, and the proprietor intends
to serve as good coffee and bread for 5
cents as one get at the Aston for 20
cents. There is considerable difference in
the prices. At the Mills hotel the charge Is
uniformly cents day. AT the Waldorf
and Astoria the cheapest room will be $3.50,
and the rates will run all the way up to
$50 a day or more. The beds are just as
comfortable at both hotels, and come from
the same factory. At the Astoria the beds
are made of brass. AT the Mills they are
made of iron. Both have similar woven
wire mattresses, with hair mattresses upon
them. At the Mills the hair mattresses for
single beds weigh twenty nine pounds and
the blankets cost $3.50 pair by the gross.
There are two pillows one of feathers and
one of hair, the sheets are of the finest
Utica mills cotton and the counterpanes are
spotleSs white. At the Astoria the sheets
are linen, and there is a. bolster instead of
an extra pillow There is velvet carpet
on the floor, also, and various beautiful and
expensive pieces of furniture touches and
easy chairs, and in each of the sitting
rooms there Is a piano; All you get in the
bottom chair, two shelves, row of hooks
and a rug on the floor before your bed.
The rooms at both hotels are lighted with
electricity and heated with steam, the Venti-
lation is perfect and the plumbing is up to
the limit of sanitary science. Both have all
the necessary elevators, and, being built OF
steel stone and frebrick, are as near fire.
proof as modern architecture can be. The
marbel stairways and vestbules are as white
and as handsomely carved, the oak trim
mings are as highly polished at the Mills as
at the Astoria, and the actual comforts are
as good in one house as in the other. The
only difference is in what We poor worms
call Injuries.
At the Mills Hotel there is a beautiful
library and two reading rooms. 80 by 200
feet each one OF them for smokers ana
pipes as we'll as cigars are permitted There
are smoking rooms at the Astoria also but
pipes are forbidden, and you have to buy
your books, magazines and newspapers at
the news stand. while at the Mills they are
furnished free.
No liquors are sold or allowed at the Mills
AT The AslcSia you can get anything in