Hotel Pennsylvania - Notable Events

Notable Events

• December 1925 William Faulkner stayed at The Hotel Pennsylvania while writing one of his many novels. Later he would go on to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.
• The Chef salad may have been created by Hotel Pennsylvania head chef Jacques Roser in the 1920s.
• November 17, 1935 Herbert Hoover spoke before the Ohio Society of New York at the Hotel Pennsylvania
• In 1940, Glenn Miller and the Glenn Miller Orchestra began the first of several extended engagements at the Hotel Pennsylvania's Cafe Rouge, often broadcast live on NBC Radio. Recordings of several of these engagements were released by RCA Victor.
• In December 1942 Charlie Chaplin attended a dinner at The Hotel Pennsylvania in New York sponsored by Russian War Relief
• In 1944, Doris Day with Les Brown and his Band of Renown introduced the song "Sentimental Journey" at the Hotel Pennsylvania's Cafe Rouge.
• On November 28, 1953, U.S. Army biochemist Dr. Frank Olson, who also secretly worked for the CIA, crashed through a window of the hotel Pennsylvania, (then the Statler Hotel) and fell over 150 feet (46 m) to the sidewalk below where he died. The New York City Police Department, U.S. Army, and CIA, reported Olson’s death as a suicide. In 1975, documents released by an American Presidential-appointed commission revealed that, days before his death, the CIA had surreptitiously dosed Olson with LSD. Twenty-years later, further investigation into Olson’s death revealed that there was ample reason to believe that he had been murdered.
• On November 3. 1964, former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy addressed his supporters in the hotel (then the Statler Hilton), after capturing the seat of incumbent Kenneth Keating in the United States Senate.
• The first Star Trek convention was held at the hotel in January of 1972.
• The character "Statler" of Statler and Waldorf was named after the hotel, when it was the Statler Hilton.
• The HOPE conferences were held at, and named after the Hotel Pennsylvania.