In the midst of that depression, the Waldorf-Astoria opened. On the way to my friend's home on Park Avenue I frequently passed it, a mighty towering structure looming proud above the street, in a city where thousands were poor and unemployed. So I wrote a poem about it called "Advertisement for the Waldorf-Astoria," modeled after an ad in Vanity Fair announcing the opening of New York's greatest hotel. (Where no Negroes worked and none were admitted as guests.)
The hotel opened at the very time when people were sleeping on newspapers in doorways, because they had no place to go. But suites in the Waldorf ran into thousands a year, and dinner in the Sert Room was ten dollars! (Negroes, even if they had the money, couldn't eat there. So naturally, I didn't care much for the Waldorf-Astoria.)
(From The Big Sea: An Autobiography by Langston Hughes.)
Fine living . . . a la carte?
Come to the Waldorf-Astoria!
LISTEN HUNGRY ONES!
Look! See what Vanity Fair says about the new Waldorf-Astoria:
"All the luxuries of private home. . . ."
Now, won't that be charming when the last flop-house has turned you down this winter?
Furthermore:
"It is far beyond anything hitherto attempted in the hotel world. . . ."
It cost twenty-eight million dollars. The famous Oscar Tschirky is in charge of banqueting.
Alexandre Gastaud is chef. It will be a distinguished background for society.
So when you've no place else to go, homeless and hungry ones, choose the Waldorf as a background for your rags--
(Or do you still consider the subway after midnight good enough?)
ROOMERS
Take a room at the new Waldorf, you down-and-outers--sleepers in charity's flop-houses where God pulls a long face, and you have to pray to get a bed.
They serve swell board at the Waldorf-Astoria. Look at the menu, will you:
GUMBO CREOLE
CRABMEAT IN CASSOLETTE
BOILED BRISKET OF BEEF
SMALL ONIONS IN CREAM
WATERCRESS SALAD
PEACH MELBA
Have luncheon there this afternoon, all you jobless.
Why not?
Dine with some of the men and women who got rich off of your labor, who clip coupons with clean white fingers because your hands dug coal, drilled stone, sewed garments, poured steel to let other people draw dividends and live easy.
(Or haven't you had enough yet of the soup-lines and the bitter bread of charity?)
Walk through Peacock Alley tonight before dinner, and get warm, anyway.
You've got nothing else to do.
(From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes.)