Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
158
TAKE A BREAK
who's who of the Gilded Age stayed
here, including Oscar Wilde, Ulysses S.
Grant, and Teddy Roosevelt. Tenor
Enrico Caruso was famously sleeping
here on the night of the quake, and
King David Kalakaua, one of Hawaii's
final monarchs, died here, ultimately
delivering the kingdom into the hands
of the United States. The building sur-
vived the quake intact and might have
weathered the subsequent fire—it had
its own cistern but employees were too
liberal with the water, leaving little for
the firemen.
The present building, built in 1909
(anyone is welcome in its lobby, so go
on in to explore), is still plenty grand,
and it isn't without its own colorful his-
tory. The luncheon celebrating the
establishment of the United Nations
was held in its Garden Court, under its
spectacular, 63,000-paned glass ceiling.
In 1923, President Warren G. Harding
died (many say mysteriously) in the
Presidential Suite upstairs and was
embalmed in its bathtub. Near the left-
hand end of the Grand Promenade,
which runs from Market Street to Jessie
Street in back, a pair of escalators takes
you up to the Mezzanine, where about
20 framed antique photos depict the
grand old lady at her peak. If the tales
of the hotel's turn-of-the-century opu-
lence intrigue you as they do me,
you'll be glad to know that City Walks
(p. 126) conducts a near-daily tour of
the building's grandest public areas; I
highly recommend it. This would also
be the time to check out the gorgeous
Maxfield Parrish mural located behind
the hotel's Pied Piper Bar inside
Maxfield's (p. 208). The door to the bar
is beside the Market Street entrance.
The line of whiskey bottles beneath the
painting looks as if it, too, is following
the Pied Piper. Just outside its entrance
in the Promenade, you'll find a case dis-
playing memorabilia about the mural,
Opposite where Montgomery and Post
come together at Market, you'll see a
branch of the
Boudin Bakery & Café
(619 Market St.;
%
415/281
-
8200;
closed Sun)
sourdough bread bakery.
The restaurant that previously occupied
its building refused to sell to developers,
so a dull office tower was simply built
around it. The cafe inside makes for a
good coffee (and bread) break, should
you need one. Outside of the lunch rush,
you'll find lines here much shorter than
they are at the Boudin at Fisherman's
Wharf.
6
New Montgomery Street
Before the quake of '06, the area south
of Market Street, or SoMa, was an over-
crowded, filthy depository for the
working class, famous for block upon
block of tumbledown homes. This area
was known as “South of the Slot,” a ref-
erence to the cable-car route that then
plied Market—think of it as the
“wrong” side of the tracks. The fire fol-
lowing the quake claimed nearly every-
thing in SoMa, and the area was rebuilt
with equally depressing warehouses and
factories. To this day, despite some
notable developments (such as the
open spaces at the Yerba Buena
Gardens a block away from here at 3rd
and Mission sts.), the area's mood still
suffers.
The handsome, bulky building on
the corner, at 50 New Montgomery St.,
is the famous Palace Hotel, which,
upon its original construction in 1875,
was the best and grandest hotel in
America west of the Mississippi, and an
icon of San Francisco wealth and pride.
Every room had its own bathroom, a
novelty even among luxury properties,
and rooms could communicate by
interconnected pneumatic tubes. A
