Baltimore's Hawaiian Room at the Emerson Hotel - MAJOR DEVELOPMENT!!! - General Tiki

J johntiki Member MD Joined: Mar 31, 2002 Posts: 1528	J johntiki Posted posted on Sun, Feb 20, 2005 9:41 PM Okay, so the unadulterated anger over losing that damn mug on Ebay has subsided...another is up now but I'm not gonna get my hopes up but I digress. All the negative energy that spilled out of my pores put me back on track in search of concrete clues of what was the Hawaiian Room. A couple weeks after my rant an article ran locally about a man who asked for or stole menus from all of Baltimore's restaurants for the last 40 years...I've contacted him in hopes of locating a menu from the Hawaiian Room...he's gonna call me back Monday to see if he has one, that's over 400 menus to look through so I'm gonna give him some time! I told the guy outright that I wasn't looking to buy the menu or break up what is a pretty amazing collection (in my humble opinion it would be great to have the collection donated to the Pratt Library! An amazing source of reference - tiki or not!) I'm just looking for a color copy! I've contacted every media source affiliated with Baltimore and got a stack of articles relating to the Emerson Hotel - the demise, the auction of the property, the owner unhappy about the final bid in the auction and buying it back, the hotel auctioned off again and finally getting a respectable price - $503,000 for the property and over $300,000 in back taxes!, the auction of the contents of the hotel, the demolition of the hotel and the mourning of those who had fond memories of the grand hotel. It all makes for interesting reading but a mere mention of the Hawaiian Room appeared in only one article in the stack...an article that I already posted in this topic. I've contacted Baltimore Magazine who weren't any help...they've only been around for 20 years. I've contacted the City Paper, the free alternative paper, and they've yet to respond. I wouldn't be real surprised if I never hear anything from them. I contacted the Baltimore Sun and got the run around but hopefully the reporter I contacted had a kind word on my behalf to the librarian who may have the key to tracking down articles by specific dates. She's out of the office until Wednesday and the message clearly stated that the newspaper's archives were only available to staff writers and other journalists but I may have an in on a technicality...I do work for a TV news department... Of note - I also joined a local Baltimore forum and tossed the question up to those who could approach it as outsiders looking in and gave me ideas on where to look next...a lot that I never would have thought of... Also, someone made mention that the Emerson Hotel was immortalized, if you could call it that, in a Bob Dylan song called "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll." The song is based on a tragic event that happened at the hotel on February 8, 1963 when a rich 24 year old kid named William D. Zantzinger hit Hattie Carroll, a 51 year old African American cocktail waitress and mother of 11, over the head with a cane. She died hours later. To make a long story short the bastard only got 6 months in jail for manslaughter and Dylan wrote the song in protest to what seems like a slap on the wrist for the son of a wealthy businessman. Kinda interesting I thought. Hmmm, if I go back in the microfiche to February 1963, would I find interior shots of the hotel? Would I possibly see a neon marquee behind a bunch of cops inspecting a crime scene that reads "Hawaiian Room?" Could Hattie Carroll have worked as a waitress at the Hawaiian Room? Could there have been follow-up stories about her co-worker's with them posing in photographs inside the Hawaiian Room? Okay...before this starts sounding anymore like an episode of "In Search Of," I will end this post. Notation added 3/22/05 - I was on my way to work today and heard "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" performed by Michael Rose - on the Reggae station! That makes it all more ironic... I've listened to and collected reggae music for nearly 20 years, I even used to do a weekly 3 hour reggae program on a local college radio station...and now, my love for reggae and my quest for tiki have suddenly merged! When I discover more dear readers you'll be the first to know...off the record, on the Q.T. and very hush-hush... :) JohnTiki Aloha from the enchanted Pi Yi Grotto in exotic Bel Air Maryland! [ Edited by: johntiki on 2005-03-22 11:43 ]

Okay, so the unadulterated anger over losing that damn mug on Ebay has subsided...another is up now but I'm not gonna get my hopes up but I digress.

All the negative energy that spilled out of my pores put me back on track in search of concrete clues of what was the Hawaiian Room. A couple weeks after my rant an article ran locally about a man who asked for or stole menus from all of Baltimore's restaurants for the last 40 years...I've contacted him in hopes of locating a menu from the Hawaiian Room...he's gonna call me back Monday to see if he has one, that's over 400 menus to look through so I'm gonna give him some time! I told the guy outright that I wasn't looking to buy the menu or break up what is a pretty amazing collection (in my humble opinion it would be great to have the collection donated to the Pratt Library! An amazing source of reference - tiki or not!) I'm just looking for a color copy!

I've contacted every media source affiliated with Baltimore and got a stack of articles relating to the Emerson Hotel - the demise, the auction of the property, the owner unhappy about the final bid in the auction and buying it back, the hotel auctioned off again and finally getting a respectable price - $503,000 for the property and over $300,000 in back taxes!, the auction of the contents of the hotel, the demolition of the hotel and the mourning of those who had fond memories of the grand hotel. It all makes for interesting reading but a mere mention of the Hawaiian Room appeared in only one article in the stack...an article that I already posted in this topic. I've contacted Baltimore Magazine who weren't any help...they've only been around for 20 years. I've contacted the City Paper, the free alternative paper, and they've yet to respond. I wouldn't be real surprised if I never hear anything from them. I contacted the Baltimore Sun and got the run around but hopefully the reporter I contacted had a kind word on my behalf to the librarian who may have the key to tracking down articles by specific dates. She's out of the office until Wednesday and the message clearly stated that the newspaper's archives were only available to staff writers and other journalists but I may have an in on a technicality...I do work for a TV news department...

Of note - I also joined a local Baltimore forum and tossed the question up to those who could approach it as outsiders looking in and gave me ideas on where to look next...a lot that I never would have thought of...

Also, someone made mention that the Emerson Hotel was immortalized, if you could call it that, in a Bob Dylan song called "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll." The song is based on a tragic event that happened at the hotel on February 8, 1963 when a rich 24 year old kid named William D. Zantzinger hit Hattie Carroll, a 51 year old African American cocktail waitress and mother of 11, over the head with a cane. She died hours later. To make a long story short the bastard only got 6 months in jail for manslaughter and Dylan wrote the song in protest to what seems like a slap on the wrist for the son of a wealthy businessman. Kinda interesting I thought. Hmmm, if I go back in the microfiche to February 1963, would I find interior shots of the hotel? Would I possibly see a neon marquee behind a bunch of cops inspecting a crime scene that reads "Hawaiian Room?" Could Hattie Carroll have worked as a waitress at the Hawaiian Room? Could there have been follow-up stories about her co-worker's with them posing in photographs inside the Hawaiian Room? Okay...before this starts sounding anymore like an episode of "In Search Of," I will end this post.

Notation added 3/22/05 - I was on my way to work today and heard "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" performed by Michael Rose - on the Reggae station! That makes it all more ironic... I've listened to and collected reggae music for nearly 20 years, I even used to do a weekly 3 hour reggae program on a local college radio station...and now, my love for reggae and my quest for tiki have suddenly merged!

When I discover more dear readers you'll be the first to know...off the record, on the Q.T. and very hush-hush...
:)

JohnTiki

Aloha from the enchanted Pi Yi Grotto in exotic Bel Air Maryland!

[ Edited by: johntiki on 2005-03-22 11:43 ]

Post #142287 by johntiki on Sun, Feb 20, 2005 9:41 PM