Part 9 (1/2)
Large enough to possess a fixed population of some 9,000, it has double, and perhaps treble, this number in the visiting season; with elegant and costly churches, mammoth hotels and metropolitan stores, affording everything desirable, from a paper of pins to the rarest diamonds and laces, it has been called ”_rus in urbe_”--more properly, _urbs in rure_.
The princ.i.p.al street is Broadway, miles in length, ample in breadth, and, for the most part, shaded with a double line of graceful elms.
Its extremities are adorned with beautiful villas. The Fifth avenue of the place, where the handsomest residences are located, is Circular street, east of the Park. Beautiful dwellings may also be found on Lake avenue and Franklin street. The streets are thronged with a gay and brilliant mult.i.tude, engaged in riding, driving, walking, each enjoying to the utmost a facinating kind of busy idleness. But by the time the tourist has glanced at all this he will be thinking of clean napkins, and will be interested to know what may be afforded in the way of
Accommodations for Man and Beast.
About 15,000 visitors can at one time be quartered in the gay watering place, and consequently to pen up all the fas.h.i.+onable flock within the limits of so small a town, requires no little tact. During August, Saratoga is always full, crowded, squeezed.
Saratoga has the largest and most extensive hotels in the world. There are in all from thirty to forty, and in addition to them numerous public and private boarding-houses accommodate large numbers of guests.
Among the hotels, the gem of Saratoga, and one of the finest, if not _the finest_, hotel in this country is
Congress Hall.
[Ill.u.s.tration: CONGRESS HALL.]
Extending from Spring to Congress street, with a front on Broadway of 416 feet, and reaching with its two mammoth wings 300 feet back, it is architecturally a perfect beauty. The rooms are large and elegant. The halls are ten feet wide, and broad, commodious stairways, with the finest elevator in the country, render every portion readily accessible. A front piazza, 20 feet wide and 240 feet in length, with numerous others within the grounds, and a promenade on the top of the hotel affording a charming view, contribute to render the house attractive. The dining halls, parlors, etc., are superb and ample, and everything about the house is on a scale of unequaled magnificence and grandeur.
The proprieters have endeavored to incorporate into this hotel everything that can afford comfort and pleasure, at whatever expense.
The cut of Congress Hall will give some idea of its _outlines_, but fails to do it justice. It must be seen to be appreciated, and when seen commands the unqualified admiration of the beholder. It was erected in 1868, by H.H. Hathorn, Esq., the proprietor of the old Congress Hall, and one of the most influential citizens of Saratoga.
The Grand Union Hotel.
This mammoth establishment is located on the west side of Broadway, and with its magnificent grounds embraces a s.p.a.ce seven acres in extent, covering nearly an entire square. It is a splendid brick structure, with a street frontage of 1,364 feet. The office, parlor, dining room and dancing hall are unequaled for size, graceful architecture and splendid equipments and finish--the former exhibiting a lavish display of white and colored marbles, while a series of colonnades rise from the center to the dome. Within the capacious grounds are several elegant cottages, which are greatly sought for by the _elite_. A vertical railway, comprising the latest improvements, renders the six stories so easy of access as to be equally desirable to guests.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GRAND UNION HOTEL SARATOGA]
The capacity of this house is greater than that of any other in the world. Some idea of its immensity may be formed from the following statistics: Length of piazzas, one mile; halls, two miles; carpeting, twelve acres; marble tiling, one acre; number of rooms, eight hundred and twenty-four; doors, one thousand four hundred and seventy-four; windows, one thousand eight hundred and ninety one; the dining room is two hundred and fifty feet by fifty-three feet and twenty feet high, and will accommodate at one time 1,200 people.
Music on the lawn at nine in the morning and at three and a half in the afternoon. Hops every evening; b.a.l.l.s on Tuesday evening.
During the present year this hotel has fallen into the hands of Messrs. Breslin, Gardner & Co., of the Gilsey House, N.Y., gentlemen who are unsurpa.s.sed as hotel managers.
Grand Central.
”The new hotel,” erected by Dr. R. Hamilton and Mr. C.R. Brown, is located on Broadway, directly opposite Congress Park, occupying the ground swept over by the immense conflagration which consumed the Crescent, Park Place and other hotels last September. Untiring energy has been manifested in its construction, and it is without doubt one of the most perfect summer hotels in the world. It is a tasteful and elegant structure, adding very much to the beauty and attractiveness of Saratoga. The citizens may well be proud of it.