Then, when I started another restaurant
at Twenty-sixth Street, the 'Old Martin' became the Lafayette."
The artists and writers came to the Hotel Martin to invite their
respective Muses inspired by Mr. Martin's excellent food and drink.
From the bachelors' quarters on the nearby square--the Benedick and
other studio houses--shabby, ambitious young men came in droves. Mr.
Martin remembers "Bob" Chambers, and some young newspaper men from the
_World_--Goddard, Manson and others. From uptown the great foreigners
came down--some of them stayed there, indeed. In 1889, approximately,
it started its biggest boom, and it went on steadily. Ask either Mr.
Martin or its present proprietor, Mr. Raymond Orteig, and he will tell
you, and truthfully, that it has never flagged, that "boom." The place
is as popular as ever, because, in a changing world, a changing era
and a signally changing town, it--does not change.
It was to the Hotel Martin that the famous singers came--Jean and
Edouard de Reszke and Pol Plancon and Melba; the French statesman,
Jules Cambon, used to come, and Maurice Grau--then the manager of the
Metropolitan--and Chartran, the celebrated painter, and the great
Ysaye and Bartholdi.
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