3 Review(s)

This charming memoir tells the story of a little boy who grew up during the Depression in a world of privileged comfort in the heart of New York City. In 1931, when Stephen Lewis was a toddler, his family moved into a four-room suite at the famed Taft Hotel when his father became its manager, a position that he held for 33 successful years. Growing up, his grade school classmates were awed by the free lunch that Steve's mother served every day in the Lewis's 15th-floor suite and were later impressed with the limitless supply of ice cream available to the Lewis boys. While the other kids from school grew up in Hell's Kitchen, Steve learned how to use a swizzle stick, brought girls home to dance in the ballroom at lunchtime, and generally lived the high life at the beautiful Taft Hotel. His recollections, filled with vivid and rich detail, are of a New York that most people know only in their dreams.