Wish you were here

I find it odd that Barry Zaid's lovely collection of hotels has not been reprinted since it was published in 1990 and not even a paperback version. Fortunately, copies are still out there and not too expensive.

I regard the book as a celebration of these exuberantly colored postcards from the past, depicting a time when it was always sunny and these hotels had just opened for business. A chapter called Grand Foyer has plenty of interiors all minus guests, though the Prince of Wales Hotel in Alberta, Canada has three people more or less in silhouette and the Balinese Room in the Chicago Blackstone has a five-piece musical group playing for an empty room. The Dinner, Drinks and Dancing chapter has some stunning Art Deco and Streamline interiors and a nice touch is reproducing the caption from the address side of the postcard.

Many of the exteriors, of course, show guests enjoying the hotel's gardens, pools or beach and the fronts on the street frequently have cars (clearly smaller than life-size) and pedestrians. As all the cards are photo-based the printers obviously took advantage of the retouching potential so the colors are bright and skies blue. This obviously adds enormously to their charm and nostalgia.

Designer and illustrator Zaid designed the book and it generally looks good but I thought it had a couple of minor editorial flaws: the grey background color to each page seems to overpower the cards a bit; a few cards are just too big because the enlargement shows up the rather crude illustrations (the Hotel Astor on page seventy has three cars that look just silly).

This is a delightful book and if you are interested in this postcard genre check out American Architecture: A Vintage Postcard Collection, a gorgeous-looking book with 625 cards. Linen Postcards: Images of the American Dream covers the complete range with over five hundred examples and has a fascinating forty-nine illustrated pages looking in depth at the history and leading card companies.

ISBN 978-1864700787