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Hotel Kid: A Times Square Childhood
A Manhattan landmark for fifty years, the Taft in its heyday in the 1930s and '40s was the largest hotel in midtown, famed for the big band in its basement restaurant and the view of Times Square from its towers. As the son of the general manager, Stephen Lewis grew up in this legendary hotel, living with his parents and younger brother in a suite overlooking the Roxy Theater. His engaging memoir of his childhood captures the colorful, bustling atmosphere of the Taft, where his father, the best hotelman in New York, ruled a staff of Damon Runyonesque house dicks, chambermaids, bellmen, and waiters, who made sure that Stephen knew what to do with a swizzle stick by the time he was in the third grade.
The star of this memoir is Lewis's fast-talking, opinionated, imperious mother, who adapted so completely to hotel life that she rarely left the Taft. Evelyn Lewis rang the front desk when she wanted to make a telephone call, ordered all the family's meals from room service, and had her dresses sent over from Saks. During the Depression, the tough kids from Hell's Kitchen who went to grade school with Stephen marveled at the lavish spreads his mother offered her friends at lunch every day, and later even his wealthy classmates at Horace Mann-Lincoln were impressed by the limitless hot fudge sundaes available to the Lewis boys.
Lewis contrasts the fairy-tale luxury of his life inside the hotel with the gritty carnival spirit of his Times Square neighborhood, filled with the noise of trolleys, the smell of saloons, the dazzle of billboards and neon signs. In Hotel Kid, lovers of New York can visit the nightclubs and movie palaces of a vanished era and thread their way among the sightseers and hucksters, shoeshine boys and chorus girls who crowded the streets when Times Square really was the crossroads of the world.
Stephen Lewis on Hotel Kid: "Raised in a loving cocoon of chambermaids, bellboys, porters, waiters, and housedicks, I led a fairy tale existence as the son of the general manager of the Hotel Taft, just off Times Square and Radio City. During the darkest days of the Depression, my younger brother and I treated our friends to limitless chocolate éclairs and ice cream sodas. Vague longings for a 'real American life' rose only occasionally — as rare as the home-cooked meals my mother attempted once or twice a year. From my privileged vantage point in a four-room suite on the fifteenth floor, overlooking the chorus girls sunbathing on the roof of the Roxy Theater, I grew into adolescence, both street-smart and sheltered by the hundreds of hotel workers who had known me since I was a baby."
The star of this memoir is Lewis's fast-talking, opinionated, imperious mother, who adapted so completely to hotel life that she rarely left the Taft. Evelyn Lewis rang the front desk when she wanted to make a telephone call, ordered all the family's meals from room service, and had her dresses sent over from Saks. During the Depression, the tough kids from Hell's Kitchen who went to grade school with Stephen marveled at the lavish spreads his mother offered her friends at lunch every day, and later even his wealthy classmates at Horace Mann-Lincoln were impressed by the limitless hot fudge sundaes available to the Lewis boys.
Lewis contrasts the fairy-tale luxury of his life inside the hotel with the gritty carnival spirit of his Times Square neighborhood, filled with the noise of trolleys, the smell of saloons, the dazzle of billboards and neon signs. In Hotel Kid, lovers of New York can visit the nightclubs and movie palaces of a vanished era and thread their way among the sightseers and hucksters, shoeshine boys and chorus girls who crowded the streets when Times Square really was the crossroads of the world.
Stephen Lewis on Hotel Kid: "Raised in a loving cocoon of chambermaids, bellboys, porters, waiters, and housedicks, I led a fairy tale existence as the son of the general manager of the Hotel Taft, just off Times Square and Radio City. During the darkest days of the Depression, my younger brother and I treated our friends to limitless chocolate éclairs and ice cream sodas. Vague longings for a 'real American life' rose only occasionally — as rare as the home-cooked meals my mother attempted once or twice a year. From my privileged vantage point in a four-room suite on the fifteenth floor, overlooking the chorus girls sunbathing on the roof of the Roxy Theater, I grew into adolescence, both street-smart and sheltered by the hundreds of hotel workers who had known me since I was a baby."
214 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
June 22, 2023
A very sweet memoir about growing up in the largest hotel in Times Square in the 1930s and 40s with all the privileges that come with being the manager's kid: ice cream and eclairs for all your friends! Plus, the author has a keen eye for the time period and all of the people who made Times Square the center of the New York universe. Very enjoyable!
August 4, 2018
Sweetly nostalgic memoir of an unusual childhood. Especially enjoyable if you actually remember New York in those years... I was born about 15 years after the author, so some of it was before my time, but I still recall elevator operators and many of the other things he mentions. Enjoyable read.
August 15, 2018
Lovely pre- and post-WWII memoir of life in New York City where the author grew up in the Taft Hotel, which was managed by his father. If you have a connection to or love that city it's a wonderful read.
November 18, 2018
Just a wonderful read about a young boy growing up in a Times Square Hotel in the 1930s & 1040s. It certainly made me yearn for an earlier time. There are glimpses of a dysfunctional family but the real treat is the evocation of NYC.
March 18, 2018
This is a charming book about growing up in a hotel in Times Square; but it is also a nostalgic look at the changing times from the 40's and 50's until today.
July 19, 2018
Hotel Kid is a blissful sweet dose of nostalgia. I loved reading it.
August 6, 2018
Amusing but trite. Avery fast read.
January 22, 2022
This book was heartwarming and funny, while catapulting the reader back to the 30s in New York City. Got a bit boring at times but overall a solid read.
November 8, 2024
While not poorly written, I’m not sure whom this book was for at all. Unless, you’re researching what it was like to be a kid in the 1930s in a hotel in New York.
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January 21, 2013A memoir. A Mildly entertaining story told by one of the children, a son, about a family living in a hotel back in the 1930's. The father was the general manager and his family lived in one of the large hotel suites, enjoying free meals and service from the employees during the depression. As times changed so did the way hotels were run.
May 1, 2014
A charming collection of NYC Times Square stories from inside a hotelier's family. Well worth reading for those of us that also have enjoyed the new York observations of Patrick Dennis, Dorothy Parker and Eloise!
February 10, 2016
Lyrical and sentimental memoir of growing up in Manhattan's Taft Hotel. I stayed there once.. early 80s..at the near end.. after the Hotel Abbey Victoria (across 51st Street) was demolished... It had a very Holden Caulfield feel.. I have pictures somewhere
March 28, 2011
A charming memoir of a childhood lived in a hotel--imagine room service for every meal and playing in the elevators or running down the long halls!
April 18, 2009
I'm pretty sure I read this...
April 6, 2013
For those that know the area, it is fun to hear about the history of Times Square from someone who lived there through much of it.
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July 29, 2018I read the first 80 pages which were nostalgic but quickly lost its charm for me. Into having finished it I feel it would be unfair to rate it.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews