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Willard Hotel; front view
Behind Pershing Park in the front are three buildings. The one on the left is the Hotel Washington. Next to it, the smaller building with interesting green covers on its windows, is an office building used by Oliver Carr, the company that rebuilt the Willard Inter-Continental Hotel as well as does much of the construction in Washington DC. The building on the right is the Willard Inter-Continental Hotel.
This hotel is 12 stories tall and was built built in 1901. The hotel was closed in 1968 but the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation took over the property and rebuilt it, reopening it in 1986. It is an amazing place to look at now, incredibly ornate. And not inexpensive either...
On the same site have been extravagent hotels since 1816. The Willard is where the president-elect traditionally slept on the eve of his inauguration. Abraham Lincoln slept here before his inauguration in 1861, having been snuck into the city because of fears that he would be assassinated as the Civil War began. The president and his family of five spent ten days at the hotel and the bill was $773.75. He left for the Capitol and his inauguration in a rushed manner and didn't have time or apparently the money to pay his bill. He paid it after he got his first paycheck as president. A copy of the bill is on display at the Willard.
(Just FYI, as of 1996, rates at the hotel vary but the one-person rate during the week is $149/night. If Lincoln crammed his entire family into one room with two beds for ten days, the bill would be $2170 not including food or tax or any tips. Suites are $550 to $2700 per night.)
The hotel brochure mentions that the first group of Japanese ever to leave their island kingdom stayed at The Willard in 1860, being in town to sign the first trade and friendship treaties between Japan and the US.
Due to the rich and important people who stayed at the hotel, the lobby of the Willard swarmed with hangers-on and hangers-around. They annoyed Ulysses Grant so much that he coined the term "lobbyists" to describe the office- and favor-seekers in constant attendance.
The Willard was also the site where Julia Ward Howe penned the famous lines that became the words to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." According to The Willard, Ward was inspired to write the song while staying at the hotel when Union soldiers walked by her window singing "John Brown's Body." Another source said that she actually saw the troops passing at Bailey's Crossroads in Virginia and then came back to the hotel to write the song.
In 1916, Woodrow Wilson held the meetings of the League to Enforce Peace, the predecessor to the League of Nations, at The Willard. Wilson's vice president, Thomas Marshall, in criticizing the price of cigars at the hotel news stand said, "What this country needs is a good five-cent cigar." Oddly enough, The Willard brochures publicize this.
Martin Luther King finished up his "I Have A Dream" speech and delivered it at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 while staying at The Willard. |