that there are from six to seven hundred hotels of all kinds
in the City of New York. These afford accommodations for persons of
every class, and are more or less expensive, according to the means of
their guests. Of these, only about fifty are well known, even in the
city, and only about twenty-five come under the head of "fashionable."
The principal hotels are, beginning down town, the Astor, St. Nicholas,
Metropolitan, Grand Central, Brevoort, New York, St. Denis, Spingler,
Everett, Clarendon, Westminster, Glenham, Fifth Avenue, Hoffman,
Albemarle, St. James, Coleman, Sturtevant, Gilsey, Grand, and St. Cloud.
These are the largest, handsomest, and best kept houses in the city.
Each has its characteristics and its special customers, and each in its
way is worth studying.

The _Astor House_ is one of the oldest hotels in the city. It is built
of granite, and occupies an entire block on Broadway, from Vesey to
Barclay streets. It is immediately opposite the _Herald_ office, and the
new Post-office. It was built by John Jacob Astor, and presented by him
to his son William. It was opened for business in 1831, by Colonel
Charles A. Stetson, the present proprietor, and for twenty years was the
leading hotel of the country. In those days no one had seen New York
unless he had "put up at the Astor." People talked of it all over the
country, and in all our leading cities monster hotels began to appear,
modelled upon the same general plan. Those were the palmy days of the
Astor, and if one could write their history in full, it would be a record
worth reading. The old registers of the house would be valuable for the
autographs they contain, for there was scarcely a great or distinguished
man of those days but had written his name in Colonel Stetson's book.

[Picture: THE ASTOR HOUSE.]

The house had from the first a strong flavor of politics about it. The
leading statesmen of the country were always there in greater or less
force, and their admirers kept up a continuous throng of comers and
goers. The house had a decided leaning towards the Whig Party, and
finally it became their New York headquarters. For thirty years Thurlow
Weed boarded here, and the caucuses, committee meetings, and intrigues of
various kinds the old house has witnessed, would fill a volume with their
history. The Astor still keeps its political character, and is one of
the Republican strongholds of the city. It is saf