When one seeks the reason for the empty dreariness of Washington at night, where trees swaying in the wind often are the only living things, he is told what seems the obvious—Washington is a town of early-to-bedders who do not go in for night life. That is not true. Washington has hundreds of sneak-ins that remain open all night. Your hardy reporters almost collapsed before they could complete this assignment—to visit every place openly or surreptitiously breaking the law. Almost all are in NW, which should have made it easier.
After-dark Washington is the way it is because it has the smalltown mentality. People do their sinning in homes and hotels or in pseudo-private “clubs.”
Now let’s get on with NW.
Most Congressmen live there. That’s a break for all except cab-drivers. Hack rates are regulated by zones. Passengers pay the same fee regardless of where they ride to in a zone, with a surcharge for each extra zone the cab enters. The Congressmen, who make all the District’s laws, talked the Public Utilities Commission into gerrymandering the zone map in such a way it ended up allowing them and you and us to go almost anywhere from the Capitol into NW for a minimum fee. No one wants to go elsewhere, so it’s a fine deal for all but the cab-jockies.
All the big hotels are in NW. That includes everything from popular-priced tourist fall-ins near the station to the luxury hostelries like the Mayflower, Statler, Carlton and the residential ones in the outskirts, such as the Shoreham and Wardman Park. And the assignation hotels are downtown, smack in the middle of everything, very snug.
Perhaps the most famous hotel is the Willard, at F and 14th Streets. They call it the New Willard now, though the new section was built during Teddy Roosevelt’s first administration. For almost a century, VIP’s from all over the world stayed here. Julia Ward Howe wrote the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” in one of its rooms. Now its cocktail bar is a hangout for lonesome government girls and other fancy-free women, best time after 5 P.M.
The new and modern Ambassador Hotel is at 14th and K, one of the many holdings of Morris Cafritz, husband of Washington’s “first” hostess since the elevation to the Diplomatic Corps of Mme. Mesta. The High Hat Cocktail Lounge in the Ambassador is a gay drinking spot, much patronized by the lonesome of either sex because of its informality. When we asked a cab-driver where we could meet a “friend” he directed us to the Ambassador. We sat there five minutes, not long enough to attract a waiter’s eye. But the eyes of two blonde things, young and not bad-looking, were quicker. One asked us to buy her a drink. We did.
Before long we were old friends. They told us they’d spend the evening with us for $20 each. We said we had to catch a train. They thought we meant the price was too high and reduced it to $10—“if we had a place to take them.”
We returned to the Ambassador half a dozen times, and all except once we were approached. That time it was too late, about 1 A.M., and all the volunteers had already booked themselves. We also saw other stags talk to girls with whom they hadn’t come in, but with whom they left.
Another cash-and-carry supermarket is the gracious old Peacock Alley of the Willard Hotel, a broad indoor parade where once world statesmen sat and sized up famed society beauties.