The daily telegram. [volume] (Clarksburg, W. Va.) 1901-1926, 1908-05-05

a
management would md II difficult 70
continue programme which has been
carried on for a number Of years.
that Is taking more ana more ground
space from rent paying tenants to
extend It's restaurant facilities. It
was recently stated BY authority that
last year the hotel did the biggest
and most profitable business OF Its
entire career.
The famous hotel closes from the
same reasons that scores. hundreds,
Of crowded and substantial CONNER
ciai buildings haYe.b been torn down TO
make room forJarger more economic
Gil subdivlded buildings which VIII
pay more money 10 owners by adding
rentableF floors where space costs
nothing. up'In the air.
The site Of the Fifth Avenue Hotel
has contained public honse OF en-
tertainment for nearly three-quarters
OF century, for before the beginning
of the second half OF the last century
IAN ancient and long established" inn
called the Madison Cottage was To-
Gated there. Prints sof the predeces-
sor OF the big marble hotel SHOW It
to have been an attractive road honse
tRo and half stories high. not count
ing a half story basement. which IN
the old pictures suggest that 1t stored
casks and barrels whose contents
4 went to the refreshment of the horse
men and other sports who continued
TO drive from the city beyond the
turn of the Bowery road toward
Greenville Village, the popular drive
of the day, up the Broadway plank
road to the inn opposite Madison's
farm.
The sharply slanting roof of the old
Inn continued down in front to make
a cover for the wide yeranda facing
the common, now Madison Square,
and there so the old chronicles tell
us, the coaching. single harness horse
racing, cockfighting and other sports
we're promoted, and also politics was
much discussed by the authoritative
old gentlemen who had been taught
the gentle art Of control of elections
by Madison, the man for whom the
inn was named. There were early
sessions of the Amen Corner on the
veranda of Madison Cottage those
days when n. P. Willis sang of the
Sweet Shady Side of Broadway"
But along in 1852 the owner of the
land on which the cottage stood be-
gan to think that more interest could
e earned out of the holding If 1t were
covered by larger and finer build
ing. Indeed, Amos R. Emo, the own
| err, a young man then, saw vision.
1t is reported of him that sitting one
day on the veranda of the cottage he
pointed out to the scrubby looking
common across the way and said:
THAT plot over there belongs to
the city. 1t should be cleaned up
and made into park because one
day this will be built up here as 1t is
down by the Aston House."
Ills friends to whom he made this
remark probably suggested to young
Emo that If he went strictly on the
water wagon for a sedate period he
would change his mind.
But the land owner got the fever
worse as time went on, and a couple
of years later tore down the cottage
and said he would build on the site
block of marble stores. Then his
friends sought seriously to dissuade
him, but the block Of marble stores
was started and was well under way
when the panic of 1857 stopped oper-
ations and the half finished walls
were boarded over.
About that time one Paran Steph-
ems who had made the Stevent house
OF Boston famous, came to New York
to look for a site for a hotel. He too
believed that Manhattan Island would
some day be built uptown as far as
Twenty-third street as closely as 1t
was down town about Fulton street.
So the Boston hotel keeper when he
saw the boxed part of building OPP
posite Madison Square went to Emo
and suggested to him that the build
Ing would pay better as hotel than
for commercial purposes.
Things began to move when the
two enthusiasms joined. An archi-
tect was commissioned to make plans
for finishing the building as hotel
Paron Stephens brought big sum OF
Boston money to put into the scheme
and the architect was told 10 give
his Imagination all the play he want
ed and the three young enthusiasts
went ahead and built a hotel which
became famous before 1t was open
ed. 1t was such a magnificent folly
that all New York drove out there
on Sunday or took stage rides on
lazy afternoons after business hours
to see the marble palace on the upper
side OF town.
i "The Emo House." as 1t was called
while being built, was completed in
August, 1859. and on August % the
doors we're opened, with some cere-
| mouy when the hotel was formally
named the Fifth Avenue Hotel.
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