The past is definitely present here; we’d booked it in a fit of last-minute nostalgia—we needed a place to stay that is centrally located for a visit with both sides of our family who are located nearby in Hollywood and Boca. This was the hotel where Ella Fitzgerald and other jazz greats would stay back when hotel options for black performers were limited, and it was also a popular spot to hear music in its club, judging from the photos on the 14th floor, which are a kind of museum. They’re all there: Sammy, Dean, Frank, etc. What’s not there is temperature control: the entire floor outside the rooms is like an icebox, as if they needed to preserve bodies in the hallway.



We checked into our junior suite late after dinner with relatives, and it was immediately apparent that it had not been occupied for some time. The hotel appears to be undergoing some kind of renovation, and it had extended to the bathroom, which was encased in light brown marble and not much else. There were no towel racks, nothing to hold the toilet tissue and no counter to hold anything else. It took a great deal of only semi-successful translating to communicate the fact that the bathroom lacked some pretty basic amenities. I know these amenities were available because as I was leaving the room I happened to peer into the room down the hall, which was still being cleaned, and noted the presence of both towel racks and toilet tissue holders. When we inquired at the front desk we were met with confusion – they kept promising to bring us more towels, and we kept asking for the things to hang them on. They seemed genuinely surprised that we were not satisfied, “especially since that is one of our nicer rooms.” When we returned to the room later that night the kind staff had set up a small table on the floor next to the bathtub and covered it with several towels, leaving room for my toiletries, but there was still no place to hang the towels. The shower curtain was the rather flimsy spring-action kind from your local bed and bath store with a plastic curtain – hardly the stuff of a upscale suite, and hanging any towels on it would have brought it crashing down immediately.



And then there was the problem of the smell; a kind of sweet, sickly slightly fruity smell that permeated the suite until I found the source; several room deodorizers – one in the closet and one just above the air conditioner – that spat out a truly awful scent (as if someone tried to turn Robitussin into a perfume) at 4-minute intervals. When I finally located them and disabled them by removing the batteries I discovered what they were trying to (unsuccessfully) mask, the telltale smell of mold. The smell was potent and may have accounted for why the hotel’s corridors were so cold—to inhibit the growth of fungus. Though the staff was sweet, as, I’m sure were the memories, we checked out the next day.