Ali Is Dead At 74

http://joeb-tallyho.blogspot.com/2011/11/when-i-worked-at-shoreham-hotel-in.html
Click on  the link above to read what I wrote about Ali and Frazier after Joe Frazier died in 2011.
They came to The Shoreham Hotel when I worked there in 1976.
The World Boxing Association held a big event then with every living heavy weight champion except George Foreman. Joe Louis was there. Jack Dempsey was there. And all the rest. Howard Cosell was the M.C. Over 1000 people came to see these champions. It was a big deal.
The next day I got Ali's autograph. You can see it by clicking on the link above.

Click on the pictures below to enlarge them.

The above picture is from the event. It was taken by Milton Williams on August 27, 1976 in the Regency Ballroom of The Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C.

 Below are two pictures from the event. They are in the Regency ballroom and are of Ken Norton.
I am looking on in both pictures.

And the picture below is of Ali and Frazier lined up with the others waiting to go in the Regency ballroom in 1976.

The Theatre, Large Hotels, Cruise Ships And Downton Abbey Have Some Things In Common

Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

The above two pictures are of The Shoreham Hotel. 2500 Calvert Street N.W. Washington, D.C.

When I went to work at The Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. the first thing I noticed was that it has four sub basements. 1000 rooms(counting the suites)upstairs and 4 basements below the grand Lobby.

While the rich and wealthy wined and dined upstairs the servants toiled below.
I first knew about this type of thing from Eugene O'Neill's play THE HAIRY APE. In that play a greasy fireman from the boiler room of a rich cruise ship finds his way up to first class and causes an uproar.

So I wasn't surprised to encounter the lower depths in the four sub basements at the Shoreham Hotel.
I have written other stories on this blog about my hotel experiences and the Shoreham Hotel.
Click on the name Shoreham Hotel in the Labels box below to read my other stories about this luxury hotel.

The whole upstairs downstairs routine lives on today in large hotels and cruise ships.
The workers now have a Union(but that is slowly disappearing as more hotels in DC open up non union)
and are better paid but the work and working conditions are still stuck in the 1920s.
Every time I watch Downton Abbey I am struck by the class distinctions and how very little has changed
from then until now. Everyone has a place and everyone knows their place.
The Shoreham Hotel is a beautiful hotel upstairs. Down below in those four sub basements it is not so pretty.
There is a good bit of theatre going on as well. What the patrons see and experience is very different from what goes on behind the scenes.
Someone wrote once that hotels have a lot to hide. It is not so much they are hiding anything it is just all out of sight and sound.
I remember once seeing a couple entering the grand lobby of the Shoreham Hotel and the man exclaimed, "Now this is more like it". It is a very elegant lobby and a fine entrance to this historic hotel built in 1929.
Standards are not what they were back in 1929 because now the Shoreham is a large convention hotel. It is more like a cattle stampede getting 10,000 people in and out of the place on a busy weekend.
Still they try to put on a good show.

Trouble In The Kitchen At The Shoreham Hotel In Washington D.C. Back In 1977

 

 

The above pictures are from the movie THE SHINING. I put them on here to illustrate the story
below. Click on the pictures to enlarge them.


When I first went to work as a Security Officer at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington D.C. in 1977 the other Security Officer I was working with on the 3pm to 11pm shift  told me to "take your time if you are called to the kitchen".  We did not carry guns. Security Officers in hotels in DC didn't carry guns back then. They did in Miami and New York City but not DC. As one Security Chief told an eager young Security Officer who asked why we didnt carry guns, "Because I want you to use your brain not your gun".

I was new but I understood what the guy was telling me. The Shoreham Hotel has 4 sub basements. The  kitchen is down below and as you descend each level gets to look more and more like the lower depths. Broken glass covers the floors.

So I got a call to go to the kitchen that a fight was underway. And that one of the cooks was chasing another cook with a butcher knife.
I did not run to the basement where the kitchen is located. But neither did I hestitate to go. I walked calmly down not knowing what to expect. By the time I got there the two of them were separated. A big black cook was holding a butcher knife and a small Korean chef(who was his boss) told me they were cutting vegetables and that they had argued over how the work was to be done.
The little Korean chef showed me some marks on his neck which he said were from where the big black cook had choked him and lifted him up off the floor. And that the big guy had threatened to kill him.

In cases like this it was standard procedure to tell the offending party to leave and punch out and go home.
So I told the big black cook to leave and punch out and go home and come back in the morning and talk to the head chef. He did just that. They fired him the next day and I heard no more about it.


Another short story. There was an old rabbi who came to the hotel to make sure to food was prepared kosher for kosher events. He once slipped on a banana peel in a dark underground hallway and broke his glasses when he fell. I had to write a report on that.

One of the cooks told me that once a chef was tired of the rabbi hanging around and got a skillet burning  hot and put it down on the floor and told the rabbi, "Rabbi hand me that skillet". The rabbi picked it up not knowing it was hot. 

The Midnight Shift At The Shoreham Hotel In Washington D.C. Back In The Day

Click on the above pictures to enlarge them. They show the lower lobby of the Shoreham Hotel in Washington D.C. and a nice color view of the upper Lobby. The hotel has large fresh flowers in the Lobby every day.
The hotel is like a large ocean going liner. Beautiful in first class but the guests never see the 4 sub basements below the lobby. More on that another time. It is very much like the ship in the play The Hairy Ape. First class guests never see what goes on behind the scenes.

Here is a true story of the workings of the hotel Midnight Security  back in the day.


When I went to worked at The Shoreham Hotel in Washington D.C.in 1977 they had 2 military guys working the midnight shift in Security The third guy was a young man who had been drawn into the scheme simply by being assigned to that midnight shift.
Only problem was the guys had it fixed so only one of them came to work and called down to the timekeeper and had the timekeeper punch all three of them in. The next night one of the other guys would come to work and do the same thing and then the third guy would do the same thing when he worked. So the hotel was paying for 3 Security Officers but only one was working on any given night from 11pm to 7am.

I worked the 3pm to 11pm shift and noticed that only one guy showed up to relieve me and the guy I worked with. He would tell us to go on home that the other 2 guys would show up sooner or later.

Nobody ever said anything about this and it went on for over 3 years.

The boss came in at 7am but he either knew what was going on or did not care. He would only see one in the morning and that was good enough for him.

One guy was an active duty Marine. One was a retired Air Force Sgt. and the other was  a young man who had another day job.

Once the midnight telephone operator lady called to Security to come over to the telephone room located under the motor inn behind the Hotel.
She said there were insects in her small room bothering her. She wanted him to bring her some bug spray.
 But the midnight Security(the Marine) was upstairs asleep in a
bed in an unoccupied room and did not want to be bothered. He told her he was coming but did not bother to go. She called back 2 more times. He finally got out of  bed and got some bug spray
and went over to the telephone room and sprayed bug spray all over the room and her as well. At least that is what she said when she complained to the boss the next morning. Nothing came of it.

Finally the boss got fired(because nobody could find a Security Officer on the Midnight Shift) by a new Hotel Manager and the new Hotel Manager hired a really serious hot shot Security Director who was a retired DC policeman who had worked in internal affairs on the DC Police Department.

It did not take him long to figure out what the 3 midnight guys were up to.

The new Security boss came in during the night and told me to say nothing. He hid out and observed the youngest of the 3 midnight guys punching all three of them in.
He called him into the office and fired all three of the midnight shift.

The young guy seemed to think I had fingered them or squealed on them. I had not. But he still thought I was the one that ratted them out. He said to me "Is your insurance paid up?" But nothing came of that threat.

World Boxing Association Event 8-27-1976 At The Shoreham Hotel In Washington D.C. Howard Cosell Was The M.C. Every Living Heavyweight Champion Except George Foreman Came And I Got Autographs From Joe Frazier And Muhammad Ali

The Shoreham Hotel Washington D.C. 2500 Calvert Street N.W.

You can find the photo described below by clicking on the link below and clicking on Events.

http://www.miltonwilliamsphotography.com/captionsevents.html

Row 1. Box 3. I AM THE GREATEST!!! said Muhammad Ali at the WBA 55th Annual Convention at the Shoreham Americana Hotel in Washington D. C. as Howard Cossell looks on. Heavyweight Boxing Champion Muhammad Ali, 2/25/64 to 3/22/67 (stripped of his title by the WBA and others for refusing military service because of his religious beliefs) - 10/ 30/74 to 2/15/78 and 9/15/78 to retirement in 1979 - First heavyweight champion to hold title 3 times in boxing history. Photo by Milton Williams c. 8.27.1976.

The above photograph of Bob Dylan and Ali was taken in another place at another time.

Joe Frazier just died. He was 67 years old. I got his autograph when I worked at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington D.C. in August 1976.
   He was there for a big World Boxing Association Event. Howard Cosell was the M.C. More than a 1000 people came to the event held in the large Regency Ballroom. Every single living heavy weight champion was there except George Foreman. The ones who came that I remember were Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis,  Jersey Joe Walcott, Ken Norton and Floyd Patterson.
I saw all these champions lined up in the hallway outside of the Regency Ballroom waiting to go in.

Joe Frazier and Muhammed Ali in line waiting to go in the event. Click on these photos to enlarge them to view them better. Photo by Joe B. Stewart

The above photo is of a young Joe Frazier.
   I got Ali's autograph in the Lobby of the Shoreham Hotel the next day. He was standing in the Lobby all alone. No one else was around. I said, "Hi Champ. Can I have your autograph?" He signed his name on a small piece of paper which I handed to him. Then I said "I saw you had your picture taken with Bob Dylan." He nodded yes.

Above is the Muhammad Ali autograph that he gave me in the Lobby of the Shoreham Hotel in 1976.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heavyweight_boxing_champions
The night of the event after it was over I saw Joe Frazier sitting with two pretty young women one on each side of him on a couch in the hallway off the lobby. I went up to him and said hello. I told him my daughter has asked me to get his autograph for her. I told him I had told her I was going to get Ali's autograph and my daughter said "Get Joe Frazier's autograph too". The two women both said "Yes". I got Joe 's autograph and gave it to my daughter.
   Howard Cosell was a great M.C. for the event. He joked and traded insults with Ali. Cosell told Ali "I knew you when you were a kid in Louisville,Ky. stealing bicycles".
 Two photos below taken after the event. Both are of Ken Norton. I look on.

Rita Hayworth Comes To The Shoreham Hotel In Washington D.C. To Accept The National Screen Heritage Award For 1977. Gene Kelly Was There Also But No One Saw Him But Us

This is how she looked when we escorted her down from her suite to the Palladian Room in 1977.

Rita Hayworth Accepts The 1977 Screen Heritage Award At The Shoreham Hotel in Washington D.C. in The Palladian Room.

Since I can't find anything on the internet about this that names the hotel where she received this award I will post it here.

I was working as a Hotel Security Officer at The Shoreham Hotel in 1977. Another officer named Frank and I were working the 3pm to 11pm shift when we got word that we were to go upstairs and hold an elevator for Rita Hayworth and then escort her down to the Palladian Room. She got in the elevator with another woman who kept brushing her hair. Rita looked nervous but also excited and happy. When we got to the lobby level we headed for the Palladian Room. The doors were closed. We were told that when she was announced(this was after the guests had eaten and watched the movie Gilda) they would open the doors and she would enter.

The doors flew open. A blindingly bright spotlight was shining directly at us(really at her)and she smiled and entered the room and the doors closed behind her. She received the award shown above.

The Shoreham Hotel Washington, D.C.

The above photo is from the movie Gilda with Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth. This movie was shown in the Palladian Room at the Shoreham Hotel before Rita made her grand entrance into the room.
When she went in the crowd roared and applauded.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rita_hayworth

Gene Kelly Was At The Hotel That Night But No One Saw Him.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Kelly

Prior to going upstairs and escorting Rita Hayworth to the Palladian Room we had gotten a call to go down to the employee's entrance and escort a man upstairs to see Rita Hayworth. I can't remember if we were told who this person was going to be but I don't think we were.
   We got the elevator down to the sub basement level and in walked a man by himself. He got in the elevator. I looked at him and it was Gene Kelly that we were taking upstairs to see Rita. I could not think of anything to say to him so I just smiled. He smiled back. I must say he really did have a great smile. We took him upstairs to Rita's suite. He did not come down with her in the elevator to go to the Palladian Room. I guess he wanted her to have all the attention from her public that night.

This is the famous WW2 Pin Up of Rita Hayworth.

Bob Hope Elbows Me In the Ribs In The Gift Shop Of The Shoreham Hotel In September 1976

Whenever Bob Hope came to Washington D.C. he would stay at the Shoreham Hotel in Suite B120. I know this because I used to work there. I saw him there in the lobby on several occasions. He would always go see Mark Russell the local comedian who performed nightly in the Marquee Lounge right off the main lobby. Russel had a joke back then about Bob Hope going to Angola to entertain our money. Angola got our money but not our troops.
In September of 1976 the new Playboy magazine featured among other things nude pictures of Elizabeth Ray who was in the news then along with congressman Wayne Hays from Ohio.
Before starting work that day I went in the gift shop to take a look at the September issue of Playboy and Elizabeth Ray. It was very crowded in the hotel that day. We had some large conventions going on so the gift shop was crowded shoulder to shoulder in a very small space. I was standing in front of the magazine rack looking at a copy of Playboy and intently focused on Elizabeth Ray. I felt a sharp blow to my rib section. I looked over an much to my surprise there was Bob Hope standing next to me. Now either he wanted me to get out of the way so he could get a copy or he was just mad that I had not recognized him and was not paying any attention to him. Maybe it was both those reasons he elbowed me in the ribs. I put the magazine back on the rack and moved out of the way without saying anything.
Here is some information on Elizabeth Ray.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Ray