The
Sunday
Bee
BLACKSTONE HOTEL
SECTION
PAGES ONE TO EIGHT
BLACKSTONE HOTEL
SECTION
PAGES ONE TO EIGHT
VOL. XLVI NO. 24.
OMAHA, SUNDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER" 26, 1916.
SINGLE COPY FIVE CENTS.
On a Commanding Site in Omaha Is the Blackstone
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tppcr left BcanUfnl New Blackstone Hotel st S6th and Fanuun Sts. ffi Sf ' " V - ',,&iWvX&flu
Upper Right The Blackstone Hotel main entrance, one ot the principal -2 t'rn " i
architectural features which adds grace and beauty to the building. Lower ' i ,g!L,VS- . m mltUUwl' .,
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Bight Looking south In the Lonnge and Fart Boom Eighth Floor. Lower
Left-First Floor Lobby Looking Toward Dining Boom.
Beautiful
Blackstone Hotel
Omaha s Newest Home
Place, is in the
Most Exclusive Part
of City.
Wonders have been accom--x
pli shed in
the construction of
this Pioneer Family Hotel.
OUT on Thirty-sixth and Farnam streets, in .
a grove of big maple trees, in one of the
ivo rooirlpTltial districts of the
city, 30,000,000 pounds of handsome red brick
and structural steel have been bolted and riv
eted and cemented together and made into tne
most up-to-date, down-to-date, and even ad-vance-of-date,
family hotel of the west. That's '
the Blackstone hotel. '
Twenty years ago when the north part of
Omaha Kountze Place and its neighbors was
the fashionable portion of the city, and at its
zenith, George A. Joslyn, Casper E. Yost and
several of Omaha's big business men drew
smiles from others of the "400".when they de
clared that the hills of West Farnam were more
desirable for residences than were the flats of
North Omaha. And they backed their judg
ment by going "west" and building the finest
homes in the city. Following them went Ed
ward Cudahy, G. W. Wattles, General J. C.
Cowin, T. J. Mahoney, W. J. Coad, Dr. Gifford,
G. C. Wharton, D. A. Baum, Guy C. Barton and
others, until there grew up out on the hills of
West Farnam, the most beautiful residential
diatrict of Omaha.
A Glorious Site.
And riitht in the midst of these splendid
nomes, seeuiuigijr uy buuic uvciaigni.,
most beautiful building sites of them all was
passed by. High and sightly, with a splendid
view in every direction, the southwest corner
of Thirty-sixth and Farnam remained unoccu
pied while the homes of Omaha's most exclu
sive, most fashionable and wealthiest citizens
were built around it. The maples which some
earlier owner had planted with care, grew into
stately trees, furnishing green and shade and
beauty. i
Then, at the psychological moment, along
came the Bankers Realty Investment Company,
looking for a site upon which to erect a struc
ture which should be the most modern family
hotel in the west. Just as the building itself
must be the last word in one of its kiud, so
should the site upon which that building was
to lie located be the very best obtainable.
"Uct the most conveniently located, the
most sightly, the best lot obtainable in Omaha,"
their agents,
The southwest corner of Thirty-sixth and
Farnam was the chosen site.
That was over a year and a half ago. And
now the Blackstone hotel has been opened
to the public as the very last word in family
hotels both as to building, service, location
and convenience.
A family hotel is not an apartment house in
any sense of the word. A family hotel is one
in which you rent your rooms by the year in
stead of by the day. You get hotel service, not
apartment house service. That's the difference.
At the Blackstone you can secure an apart
ment of one room, two rooms, three rooms, four
rooms, five rooms or even six rooms. But there
will be neither kitchen nor dining room in your
suite. The Blackstone is a hotel, not an apart
ment house.
A Half Million in It.
The 15,000 tons of brick and structural steel,
in their primitive form, did not cost much
money a few thousand dollars at the most.
But by the time the clay had been worked over
and molded and burned into brick and the iron
ore had been smelted and pigged and rolled and
both had been put in place under the eye of the
builder and jn accordance with the plans of the
architect, the combination was worth a half
million dollars and that is the cost of the big
building, according to the owners.
But even while the building was under con
struction, the materials were advancing in price
so rapidly that the owners could have made big
profits by reselling instead of by completing
the hotel. J'or instance, when the steel used in
the construction was purchased, $27,000 was
the price paid. Before it was all in place in
the building, it was worth $40,000 an increase
of nearly 50 per cent in its value. There were
similar advances in the brick, the concrete, the
brass, the copper, the marble, the tiling and the
thousand-and-one things that go to the making
of a big buiiding.
But the lumber well, the advance in lumber
cut small figure in the cost of the Blackstone
hotel. There is practically no wood used in its
construction. The floors They are of cement
all except the floor to the big ball room in
the eighth story. And that is laid on cement.
Partitions! They are all of gypsum blocks,
which are fireproof and sound proof, Hear
that! Sound proof, .Can't hear your peigh-
bor's victrola or piano or baby. Neighbor!
daughter can sing all she wants to-; neighbor's
baby can cry itself to sleep, neither will dis
turb you'. Sound can't percolate through those
gypsum block partitions.
, Neither can fire. Neighbor's boy can go to
bed with a cigaret in his mouth and set the bed
afire. Neighbor's furniture (which belongs to
the hotel, anyway) may burn to a crisp ; valua
ble curtains may ruin the wall decorations
when they flare up ; splendid carpets may burn
to rags; fire can't get out of the one room and
can't even damage that room itself. There is
no wood in the building to burn. So the ad
vance in the price of lumber cut practically
no figure in the cost of construction of the
Blackstone hotel building.
An Unrivaled View.
You can see the skyline of the Blackstone
from all over the West Farnam country and
for many miles in other directions, also. Con
sequently, the view from the roof gardens
there are three big gardens on the roof of the
Blackstone is simply superb. (These gardens
are free to the residents of the hotel and are
included in the service). To the north, there
are the hills beyond Florence ; westward, Dun
dee, Happy Hollow, the Country club, the Field
club and the hills and valleys of the Pappio ; to
the south, way-away on beyond South Omaha
are the cultivated fields of Sarpy county, while
to the east did you ever see the Missouri river
on a moonlight night? Ever see it from a dis
tance? From the roof-gardens of tho Black
stone hotel you can see its silver thread where
it breaks through the hills north of Florence
and can trace it down under the Illinois Cen
tral bridge, past the smelter, past the Douglas
street and the Union Pacific bridges, down past
Child's Point, around the horn by Manawa and
on towards Plattsmouth. By actual count the
shining waters appear and disappear an even
forty times from the roof gardens of the Black
stone hotel. And beyond the Missouri are the
hills of Council Bluffs and Iowa all visible
from the Blackstone. That's the view towards
the cast.
There are eight stories exclusive of the
basement and sub-basement to the hotel. The
main entrance is to the east, from a wide walk
through the trees from Thirty-sixth street.
With the red brick face and the white' glazed
terra cotta trimmings around every window,
every door and every cornice, the face of the
building is very imposing. The red and white
gleaming through the green of the maple trees,
present a restful, pleasing appearance as one
approaches. The building itself is shaped just
like a capital "E," the entrance in the middle
the cast.- The back of the "E" runs along
the alley line so that trades-wagons, delivery
wagons and hauling of every kind will be
brought to the rear door of the building.
Very Accessible.
Accessibility was one thought uppermost in
the mind of the builders of tho Blackstone
when they were searching the city over for a
site. With the Farnam, Dundee and Cuming
car lines passing the very door, giving half
minute car service during the rush hours and
two-minute service during the balance of the
day, with cars leaving "down town" after ,1
o'clock at night, the street car service to the
location is ideal. And then, for those residents
who will use their automobiles, there is the
Farnam street paving, the best in the city.
For the man with the "walking bug," there is
the straight chute right down Farnam street
to town and the sound of the faithful "jitney"
is always heard in the West Farnam land. The
Blackstone is very easy to reach.
The Blackstone is particularly convenient as
a home for the club man, the Country club,
Happy Hollow club and Field club all being
within easy reach. To the man with an auto
mobile, all three are just around the corner,
of course. But to the resident, of the Black
stone who does not maintain a machine, the
cars of the street railway afford good service
from his hotel. Happy Hollow is right out
the Farnam line with a four-minute service.
Country club members will find it very conven
ient to take the Farnam-Cuming line and trans
fer at Fortieth and Cuming streets. Those of
the Field club set who live at the Blackstone
and do not keep an automobile will find them
selves within a few minutes' walk of their club
by going down Thirty-sixth street, the distance
from the Blackstone to the club house being
but very little more than from the car line
at Thirty-second.
Tho Blackstone is probably the most solidly
constructed building in Omaha especially
among the- hotels. To support its 30,000,000
pounds of brick, cement and steel, it was nec
essary to sink 412 great concrete piers right
down to bedrock. To these piers were bolted
the immense steel columns to which tho steel
framework of the building was riveted. This
framework, alone, Weighs more than a million
pounds: to be exact, 1,200,000 pounds. And
there are 350,000 rod texture face brick, to say
nothing of the 700,020 common brick used in
the walls of the big building. .More than 7,000
barrels of cement were used to cement these
1,050,000 brick together while, as for sand, the
kids have made a swimming pool out of, the
hole from whence the hundreds of tons were
taken-. If the brick used in the construction of
the Blackstone were laid into a walk, instead
of being built into strong walls, a man could
walk from Omaha to Des Moines on them with
out getting his feet wet.' And when he ar
rived at the latter city he would find a pile of
"left overs'" large enough to supply sufficient
ammunition for 100 Irish wakes,.
Enormous Floor Space. ,
There are 120,000 square feet of space on the
floors of the Blackstone. In addition to the
eight floors for the use of the residents, there
is a basement and a sub-basement. And each
floor and basement-contains 13,000 square feet
of space. The basement, proper, is for the use
of the servants and employes of the building:
the sub-basement for the boilers, the furnaces,
and the great quantity of intricate machinery
necessary to the equipment of as complete a
building as is the Blackstone.
The big yard, filled with flowers and shrubs,
is the pride of the -heart of the architect. When
the plans of the big building were drawn, more
than one year and a half ago, that yard was'
constructed on paper. Just about as much
thought and attention were given to this por
tion of the property as was given to the spa
cious office within. The height of every shrub
was weighed, the color of the flower it bore
was considered, the part that each would take
in the harmony of the whole and the effect that
would be produced, were all taken into con
sideration. And as a result of the care with
which this portion of the hotel was planned,
that bunch of spirca, this one of thumbergia,
those hydrangeas, that great mass of golden
glow, the tall stalks of many-colored holly
hocks, the window boxes, the cannas, the lilacs
all harmonize perfectly. Each fits into its
place as though its place was made for it as
it truly was.
The Blackstone is the pioneer of family
hotels in Omaha. Hotels of this class have ,
proven extremely popular in other cities, es
pecially in the east. But until the Blackstone
people decided to construct the present build
ing, nothing of the kind had been seen in this
city. When the' excavation was first begun,
the Doubting Thomases were many, even
among tho real esfate men of the city. But as
the work progressed, as the walls were reared,
as the beauty and convenience of the hotel be
came more apparent, and especially as suite
after suite was leased, those who had doubted
the wisdom of the builders of the Blackstone
became convinced that the latter had correctly
gauged Omaha sentiment. The Blackstone is
not an experiment; it is a success,