eBay: Hong Kong Bar mug, Century Plaza Hotel

I have two of these, so I'm selling one. I wish I could find more info on the Hong Kong Bar, but I was having trouble even determining what city it was in.

Anyway, it's a clean, damage-free mug.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260537122582#ht_1293wt_1167

Brad, Some info gleaned from the 'net.."Jazz Disco.org"....Atlantic Records Discography: 1968 - session index-Carmen McRae--Norman Simmons (p) Chuck Domanico (b) Frank Severino (d) Carmen McRae (vo, p)
"Hong Kong Bar", Century Plaza Hotel, Los Angeles, CA, 1st set, December 27, 1968

And this from TIME MAGAZINE JUNE 10 1966....Mustang after Mustang rolled down the Avenue of the Stars and up the gently curving driveway, past a sparkling fountain, to halt beneath the porte-cochere. On hand to help the guests alight were doormen rigged out in Beefeater suits. Inside, phalanxes of blonde, straight-haired teenagers, wearing tight pants and no shoes, padded noiselessly through the vast, thickly carpeted lobby. Standing by the automatic elevators were delicately feminine Japanese starters in long kimonos and obi sashes.

"Coming to a hotel," says Architect

Minoru Yamasaki (TIME cover, Jan. 18, 1963), "should be an event, a fun thing." His new $32 million, 800-room Century Plaza Hotel, which opened last week in Los Angeles, is all of that and more. To begin with, there is the hotel's distinctive shape. To eliminate endless vistas down straight corridors, Yamasaki designed the hotel as a curved slab, 400 ft. long. In most new hotels, ballrooms, restaurants and shops are housed aboveground in a massive and ungainly block; Yamasaki placed them beneath notice, underground, along with a 1,000-car garage, so that the gracefully balconied slab rises cleanly from the ground.

Buried Ballroom. The hotel has no fewer than 32 shops and seven restaurants and bars, including the dimly lit Hong Kong Bar, with its bead-curtained alcoves, and the Spanish-style Granada Grill, with arched doorways and central fountain. In front, guests can wander onto an outdoor "cafe plaza," one floor below lobby level; in back, they can sip tall drinks beneath mustard-colored umbrellas in a Japanese-style formal garden crisscrossed with bridges, or take a dip in the swimming pool.

WOW! Thanks for the info! That sounds like a really spectacular place! I hesitate to ask (fearing the answer), but is any of this still standing??

HA! Now that I know what I'm looking for, I answered my own question! Buth my original sources were right; it IS in LA and Century City (sorry, I don;t know anything about LA) and it does appear to still be standing (although it's listed as endangered).

Fantastic place!

Classic Silver Line Boats

[ Edited by: SilverLine 2010-01-13 08:12 ]

It's a Hyatt now and is on the endangered list...slated for demolition...hopefully it can avoid the wrecking ball.

i have that same mug and the bottom is marked "holiday inn financial district chinatown san francisco"

My employer was the former owner of that hotel. We purchased it in 2005. Did millions in renovations and reaped a tidy profit upon selling it. Ive stayed in it several times and photographed much of the insides for our Annual Report. I was bummed when we sold it. Its a super nice property.

It was known as the western whitehouse for many years as most of the presidents between 1965 1990 stayed there while visiting the LA area.

Plaque on the wall in the lobby area outside the ballroom

Lyndon Johnson at a dinner in the main ball room

Nixon shaking hands with kitchen staff

Reagan speaking to the media upon recognizing his win in 1980

It was also the host to the "Dinner of the Century" celebrating the popular Astronauts of the era back in the late 60's


Astronauts standing for a photo with their wives

This is what it looks like now.

[ Edited by: Monkeyman 2010-01-13 16:03 ]