Click on all these pictures to enlarge them.
The pictures above are of the Sheraton Carlton Hotel at 16th and K Streets N.W. in Washington D.C. This hotel is now called The Saint Regis Washington,D.C.
I worked at the Sheraton Carlton at 16th and K Street N.W. in Washington D.C. in 1978 1979 and 1980.
This was a small fancy hotel 2 blocks from The White House. I worked nights there and on weekends.
One night I was told by the guy on the front desk that there were some prostitutes up in a room and I should go up and put them out of the hotel.
I went up and knocked on the door. A man opened the door wide and I could see inside a group of Saudi Arabians sitting on the floor in their white robes. The man asked me what I wanted and I told him the two women(they were blond Americans)had to go. He asked me, "How much money do you want?" He had pulled from his pocket a large roll of money. I told him I could not do that because I would be fired. I waited until the ladies came out and escorted them downstairs and out of the hotel.
Another night a middle aged man came downstairs at 3 am with a college aged blond girl. I watched them. No one else was in the small lobby. He looked at me and said, "She is my daughter and she is going out for cigarettes". He went back upstairs. She never came back.
Sometimes when I would come on duty at 11pm the cooks would be closing up the kitchen to go home. From time to time they would offer me some of the left over specials. One time a cook asked me if I would like some beef bourguignon. I said yes of course. It was tremendous.
Click on the link below to read about this dish.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef_bourguignon
My favorite memory of this hotel was the night of Sunday Feb. 18,1979. The next day was a holiday. George Washington's birthday. Celebrated each year on the third Monday of Feb.
I went to work at 11pm and it started snowing. It snowed all night. I sat looking out the windows from the restaurant facing K Street and watched it come down. There was no traffic on 16th or K Street.
The snow plows kept plowing until 5am and then they gave up and went home and never came back. The snow was 4 feet deep in K St at 6am. I was scheduled to be at work at the other hotel at 7am. No one showed up to relieve me. In fact, no employee period showed up at the Sheraton Carlton that morning except one cook who told me he had walked all the way in from Alexandria,Va.
That is a distance of 15 or more miles in heavy deep snow across the bridges and unplowed streets.
I gave the keys to the front desk and told them I had to leave to be at work at another hotel. I walked out onto K Street. There was no traffic. The snow was up to my waist. The only way people were getting around was by skis. The streets were deserted. The wind was blowing the snow into a swirling blizzard.
I left my car on the K St. service road. I did not get it dug out until 3 days later. The city came to a standstill for about 2 days.
