City in Sound; Conrad Hilton Hotel

This is Jack Angel with City and Sound. These are stories out of Chicago, city of all things. One among them, world's largest hotel. Mr. Musgrove, would you sign here, please? Yes, sir. On this red line. Sir, would you please put your address right here, street address? Yes, sir. We'll be fine, sir. Just a second. We'll have your room. All right, sir. Like him. All right, Mr. Musgrove. Here's a room on the 25th floor. It has a seven -shar, a large double bed. And the rate is 1150 a night. Does that say a second? It's all right. Five. The name is D -E -S -G -R -O -D -E. Musgrove, right? Paul. It's right here. D. Come here nicely. Be with us, sir. I'll be here through Thursday. All right. Friday. I'll leave Friday. All right, sir. Hope you enjoy your stay with us. Thank you. Run, please.

The massive 3 ,000 -room edifice that faces out to Michigan Avenue and the world. And a 16 -story hotel -sized building attached as a wing that provides the people and the means to operate it. This is called Back of the House. And this is where we go. We're here with Mr. Robert F. Quayne, who's General Manager of the Hilton and Vice President of the Hilton Corporation, as well. And has been here for how long did you say, sir? Since 1945. Well, that makes you about the oldest hotel manager in point of duration in town, doesn't it? That is right. Well, this still remains the world's largest, doesn't it? That is right, yes, sir. 3 ,000 -room. Yes, sir. We average about 2 ,000 employees a day here working. And we

sometimes sleep as many as 4 ,000. We've had as many as 5 ,000 here under the roof in one night. Well, can you keep 3 ,000 rooms occupied all year round? No, not well. It's certain periods of a certain months of the year, I might say. We'll run about 72 % occupancy. Is that the highest or the... Well, it is in the recent years, yes, because business has been declining, but it still is a very healthy percentage of occupancy for hotel like the Conrad Hilton. And this is with the exception of the big convention months, you mentioned, then you're all full, you're 100 % or... Well, certain days of the week we would be 100 % full. What are the big convention months here, Mr. Claim? January, February, May, June. Any particular reason for those months? It seems to fit into a pattern of conventions throughout the country. I guess it's after certain inventories are taken after the first of the year. Some of the furniture market is the largest that we

have and with the largest number of people coming in. But they're also... They're inventories now and they're here to look over the market and see what they can buy for the next six months. Well, this being known as the convention city, do you prefer to have this hotel known as the convention hotel? Yes, sir, we do. It is known and known throughout the world, not just in the United States, but throughout the world as a convention hotel. Do conventions pose special problems as well as special advantages? Well, yes, there has to be more planning and more details looked after than wouldn't an ordinary individual or small groups coming in. How's business been lately? Well, it's going to be very good for the first quarter. It'll be a light in the second quarter. Does this reflect an economic trend? No, it has a pattern of conventions for our hotel. The latter six months will be extremely busy here. But you haven't picked up any signs of recession? Yes, we have. The individual isn't traveling. Convention

delegates have held up in their total attendance. However, the individual has fallen down. Well, you certainly have a tremendous plan here, Mr. Queen. I think we'd like to browse around and look it over. Very good. Thank you very much for being here, Jack. We're here in the rehabilitation department. It says on the sign here, and I understand that this is Jim McBlade, who is the rehabilitation manager. No, just exactly. What are you rehabilitating? Well, we're certainly not weekend guests. No, no. That's the furniture in the rooms. The rooms need painting or the furniture is kind of beat up and broken or anything like that. The covering is soiled or dirty in any way. It comes up to this department and is completely rehabilitated. I'd gather that we're in the upholstering section. You are in the upholstering section. That's correct. Well, there are literally hundreds of items of furniture around here. Are these broken chairs? Yes, we have many, many broken chairs. Some are soiled. Some they drop drinks on or food or anything like that.

And they have to be recovered, of course. Our guest is pretty rough, or is it just normal? Well, I guess it's normal wear and tear. You know, rougher than any other hotel except we have a few more rooms in the most hotels. With 3 ,000 rooms, you've got a lot of pretty things to do. Looks like you've got part of it here, too. Oh, we have a good majority of it here. The big bolts of cloth that we saw, and you mentioned something about making your own drapes. That's true. It's a lot cheaper than having them made in the outside. We buy the bolts of material and the women make up the drapes of the various rooms. Of course, there's different sizes. If we had to made up in the outside, we'd have to send out different sizes. We'd have to measure them anyway. How many men do you have here in women? Oh. We have about five drape we saw as. We have five drape we men. We have about seven upholster as two, three finishes. Seven or eight, housemen. Quite a group. So back of all, the place looking furniture is a rehabilitation department. That's true.

Very few people know about the back of the house. They all know about the front. A few people know about the back. We'll have to get back here. All right, sir. Thank you. You're welcome. Once upon a time, that's how I answer it. Here's Mrs. Grace Amick, Chief Operator here at the Hilton. I feel like we're at a golf course for the moment because I don't want to disturb these busy operators here. This surely is the biggest PBX board in town. Yes, it is. It's the largest impact in the largest in the United States. I don't know. They have anything large for your or other places or not. I haven't counted the boards. I assume there are 25 boards. 23 of them are working. How many girls do you have on duty at peak period? At a peak period, we have 23 operators on duty. What are their calls consist of mostly? Well, it depends on the show, really. Last week, we had rainbow girls. Most of their calls were room to room.

But when you have the canners and the politicians and so forth, they're mostly outgoing and incoming. A lot of long distance business. Long distance business. Is maintenance much of a problem on this? Well, we keep two men here at all times for repair work. And we also have two men who have an office on the sixth floor that install telephones. I mean, the repairmen cannot install them. You know, they just do the repair work. Well, the telephone company these days works for quite an interesting approach on the voice level to you. We have a training program almost like the telephone company. This board is rented from the telephone company. And we work hand in hand with them. And try to get that voice with a smile. Oh, definitely. All right, thank you very much. We're standing here in the engine room of the world's largest hotel. Helen, believe me, it looks like it. I'm going to ask Mr. George Allen, a plant engineer here to describe it for us. These tremendous machines right

ahead of us, sir. What are they? They are generators. Rick drives Worthington generators. How many of these do you have? We have five of these here, and now we did have five, but we have one remote for air conditioning. Those new yellow boiler tank pipes on there. What are they? I see they stretch about a story high. They have an almost endless series of ductwork. What are they? Well, they are significant. You are compressors on our new air -conditioning system. Oh, the Hilton will be air -conditioned. 100%. I see it on the signs, and I see the works down there. This here works on the chilled water, and which we pump the chilled water all through the building, and which tempered up the air as it comes into the room. Mr. Island, this is the third basement underneath the Hilton. I know, and how many basements are there? There are six all together, including the ash basements. What would be underneath this here? Well, this would be the bottom room

underneath. That would be the fifth basement. That would be the fifth basement. Now, do we have a little basement between this basement and the bottom room, which we used for storage? I see. What's on the very bottom level? That is all the ashes. That's where the ash is built in the water, and then we take them out of there and fill them up into the truck up in the alley. I see. I was interested to learn with Mr. Island that a whole wing of this hotel, actually a separate building in itself, is just used for maintenance purposes. This would be a building which would be perhaps a normal sized hotel in itself. It would be our service department here, 16 floors high. The two upper floors are mostly for machinery or storage of water. Our water tanks are there. Then you have your cafeteria, which is on the 14th floor. That's for employees. That's for employees only. And then on there, we have a posting shop over there. I like this shop. And our sewing room. And then we have our ice cream department over there. And most of any department that takes care of the main building

here, is used in the service building. And when you say back of the house, this is it. That is it, that's right. And this is underneath the back of the house. This is underneath the main building. The whole hotel. That's right. That's right. All right, thank you very much, sir. You're welcome. Here on the 14th floor of the building back of the house, is a training room for Conrad Hilton employees. It's empty right now. All safe, Mrs. Francis Ross, who's the training director. And I would like to ask her who she trains. And he employees within the hotel for whom a department head feels he would like to establish a training program. Actually, the department head may bring his own, we'll say, bell boys up here for a discussion with them himself. If he plans a specific training program, he may want a slide film developed by us to pinpoint some specific

problem that he has, or he may want us to hold a conference with his trainers to pitch a certain attitude that he would like to have carried out throughout his department. Well, I was supposing you hire a maid. One of the housekeepers gets the maid, and the maid has no experience or insufficient experience, and yet seems to be a very good employee, or employee prospect. Would you take over and train her? Would you be a part of your training program? No, we feel that the department heads and the supervisors are better qualified to train on the job. However, there are meetings, which are scheduled, whereby we come in as a little extra -curricular activity, but we bring in the training films, describing exactly what the maid's duties are. We set up any programs that they want that will

supplement and amplify their specific training program. Ms. Ross, is this a new wrinkle in the hotel business? Is this something that Conrad Hilton has brought out, or has this been going on for a long time? I think it may be rather unique in hotel business, although training departments are becoming more and more prevalent throughout industry everywhere. These employees I assume are trained on company time. Yes, yes, they are. The only other thing I could think of is who trains the training instructors? Are they trained in the hotel industry, or do they come from related fields outside it? I would say generally, from related fields outside. All right, thank you very much, Mrs. Ross. Here's Mr. Joe Gardner. We're here on the Central Disco Station, which is quite a station I might add. It's a tremendous room served by a number of conveyor belts and quite mechanical devices that I think we can go into

now, Mr. Gardner. Would you describe it for us? Well, it's a central dish washing area, which covers our banquet floors, our room service, park row dining room and the coffee house. Both the park row dining room and the coffee house are located on the floor below us, and the banquet department on this floor, the floor above us, and also on the towers of the hotel. How about these conveyor belts? What do they do? They convey the dishes from the various serving areas to this central washing area. This area is connected to the various areas, both by an intercommunication system and also by telephone. So we have instant communication to supply additional dishes if they're short in one area. You're in constant communication with anybody in the house that is in a food department all night.

Yes, that's correct. Executives should, who is in charge of this department's office, is right behind you as you see that. And he can see from his desk through those glass windows exactly what's going on at all times. Well, I see that automation has come to the central dish washing area here. This is mostly a machine operation, isn't it? Yes, it is, except for feeding the dishes in and catching them the other end. It's all mechanical. Here's Mr. Robert Jones who is in the catering department. Mr. Jones, do you have any idea how many dishes you move through here or have you ever really found out? There is a set rate of flow through the machine which we must maintain offhand. I cannot give the exact figure. It is into the thousands of pieces per hour as a matter of fact on one particular banquet here in the Grand Ballroom. We will have many thousands of

pieces involved plus the dishes that are involved in the dining room. Are you interested only in large banquets or do you cater the small part too? No sir, we are very much interested in anyone from a single guest up to a large banquet. We pay a special attention to small groups. We have the imperial suites. We have our many suites within the hotel in our dining room that we are extremely interested in the individual guest. Here is Molly Barrett, who is chief housekeeper of the biggest house in the world, which is, believe me, quite a house to keep and also one of the nicest people in the world. And what are you doing a place like this besides just keep busy all the time? Of course, you try and take care of 3000 rooms. And in addition to that, you

try and keep about 50, 200 employees. In my own immediate department, I have 518, which is a good day of work to keep them all moving. I should say it is. Who are these people, Molly? Well, they consist of all the boys and girls in my department to keep the biggest house in the world at clean. The maids? The maids and cleaners and vacuuming, window washers and so forth. So it's quite a crew for one person. But of course, I don't say one person because I have several assistants and who are very helpful and a wonderful, wonderful crew developed over a period of years. They do a very beautiful job. They have two on many occasions for the large conventions. We have 2 ,300 people a day, right? I just started here. Oh, yes. And at the same time, you're likely to have 22 or 23

hundred people leaving the same day, which is quite a task for my people and my department. You certainly look as if you enjoy a job. I am very, very happy in my job. I mean, this company has been wonderful to me. And to my way of thinking, they are the greatest on earth. They do everything for their employees. That is the reason that we have let it or no changes in our entire organization just because of the consideration of the company toward all of us. That's true. How long have you been here, Molly? Oh, I've been here 15 years. And in that time, I guess you've seen a lot of them come and go, haven't you? Well, do you mean employees? Yeah. Oh, definitely. I mean, you can't expect to. Prior to my coming down here, you know, I was an ambassador east and west, interior decorator and director house keeping for 12 years. So my association has been nice. But I wouldn't change the kind of tilting for any of them that I know now. What are your view of the guests? You get a very interesting vantage point here.

You serve them and your employees serve them? What is your opinion of them? Well, I think they're very tolerant and very fine. Part of my job is to call on the heads of the convention, even with this accent, which is atrocious. But nevertheless, year after year, they are glad to see me around. Well, we think it's very charming. And thank you. So we think they are really wonderful. And they are very patient, as I say, when you have 2300 people day checking out and 2300 moving in. That's not a small task, you know. So we find they are wonderful. Again, I go back to being tolerant and fine and considered to have the employees. And this is big, you know. It's difficult for you to believe that we have in our 3 ,000 rooms built on 36 acres of space. I don't mean scattered, but straight up and down. 36 acres of space. And it's also difficult for you to

believe, when we speak about the employees having a lot to do and 3 ,000 rooms to keep clean. In this town, 228 tons of dust falls in Chicago's Loupe every 30 days. And over here in the Canada Tilton, we have 5 ,200 windows open. And in comes that dust and settles on our carpets and furniture and so forth. I can appreciate the volume of your problem. Yes, and here we are with 300 ,000 yards of carpets scattered over there. 36 acres. And that is a responsibility keeping that clean. Fortunately, all that dust doesn't fall in one place. No, or we'd never make it if it did, I'm afraid. Yes, it's really big. We have as high as 20 ,000 sheets in circulation daily. And about four times that many towels are a big description. Well, you have quite a reputation as a philosopher. I don't want to go into it too much. But I am very

impressed by some of the things you told me, for instance, that you came from Ireland with the one that was in a few cents in your company. Well, a few dollars. Let's put it that way. And it can only happen here, you know. You come here with nothing. And people are considered kind and helpful. I mean American people. Thank God for Americans. And you get up to the biggest job in the world and the field of your choice. So what more can you expect? One thing that I want to tell you right now, it could not happen. Beyond the Atlantic of the Pacific, it happens to some of us immigrants coming in here. And now you keep house at the world's biggest house. That's right, that's right. And with a lot of help. With a lot of help, yes. And that is why Molly Barrett and the Conrad Hilton are especially important to Chicago. To the thousands of travelers who sign the registry each week, they are Chicago. The first impression and sometimes the last. The hotel spends a county -sized budget and trains a small army of help to make it a

good impression. This is the convention city. The convention is a major industry at the center of many other industries. All served by still another industry, which is called the Conrad Hilton. Jack Angel with George Wilson, whose recordings here have imprinted city in sound.