The problem with having talking chairs in hotel rooms

Let's take a quick trip back 55 years to August 1953. An article in that month's Mechanix Illustrated highlights ill-fated inventions, such as talking hotel chairs, which were giving a whirl at the Hotel Edison in Midtown. The concept: When a person eased himself into the chair, his weight would actuate a lever that would start a record playing. When he got up, it would stop. Irwin Kramer, vice president of the Hotel Edison, said of the chairs, “It would be a direct means of advertising. When a guest came into his room and sat down, we thought he’d be pleased to hear something like 'welcome to the Hotel Edison,' and a description of some of our features. We thought it would be quite a novelty.” Right! According to the article, "A pretty girl came in, plumped herself wearily into the chair and the monologue started. She leaped up, peered into the closet and under the bed, then ran screaming into the hall. 'There’s a man in my room,' she gasped. The management had to quiet her." Soon after, the hotel removed the chairs.

Previously on EV Grieve:
At the Hotel Edison: An appreciation

At the Hotel Edison: An appreciation

Whenever we start reading about old-school joints such as Frankie and Johnnie's facing the wrecking ball, it makes us appreciate the city's remaining institutions even more. Places such as the Hotel Edison and its diner, Cafe Edison (you know, the Polish Tea Room) that Neil Simon and other Broadway types would frequent for its blintzes, borscht and goulash. The hotel, on West 47th Street next to the W smack in the middle of Times Square, was built in 1931, as its Web site trumpets, "in the same grand Art Deco style as Radio City Music Hall." Anecdotes abound about the Edison, like whether the scene in which Luca Brasi gets rubbed out in The Godfather was filmed here...or the Hotel St. George in Brooklyn Heights. Whatever. No matter how dusty around the corners this place is, it remains a treasure from the past.

I have a few more photos on my Flickr page.