Not so elegant accommodations
From the same magazine that brought you the Vernonware ad, here's the Vanderbilt Hotel in NYC: (Click on image for a larger version)
This grand hotel was built around 1913, and one of the more interesting surviving features is a room with vaulted ceilings that was rumored to be private train platform for the Vanderbilt family. (That space is now a restaurant.) Enrico Caruso lived here as well. It was turned into apartments in the 1960s, which is brings me to my own close encounter with the building.
A little over a decade ago Paul spent the better part of a year working in NYC on a rail project at Grand Central. His employer decided that it would cost less to get a few apartments than bother with hotel rooms due to the length of the job. They sub-let several rooms in this building. Paul stayed in a one-room furnished apartment. Believe me, the place was nothing to write home about. The entire living space - including the bijou kitchen - was about the size of our living room and rented for approximately the same amount of money that we were making in house payments.
I'm sure this was a very luxurious hotel in its day, and it still is a nice address. It was just strange to see this building staring back at me from the pages of a magazine.