Motelian America

December 12, 2000 Americans will celebrate the anniversary of one of the national symbols. 75 years ago In the California town of San Luis-Obispo, a hotel opened. It was stylized under the ancient Spanish Catholic mission: white walls, a red tiled roof, Moorish carved end. The walled building of the turret was an exact copy of the bell tower in the Santabarbar mission, which is located in the hero city of the famous television series in the same name (three hours drive from San Luis Obispo). It seems to be an ordinary event made historical one detail – name. Above the entrance and on the roadside shield instead of the familiar Hotel, the unfamiliar MO-TEL.

This is the obvious reduction from Motor Hotel turned out to be an invaluable know-how of the owner of the institution, Arthur Haynemann. (Fully the name of the new institution sounded like this: Milestone Mo-Tel. A little later, Hayneman changed him to a shorter and energetic Motel Inn.) The word quickly won the country, and then a significant part of the world.

Motel – An iconic object of modern American civilization, like jeans, hamburger or Barbie doll. Americans with their love for changing places and at the same time – to comfort and standard were simply obliged to come up with something similar.

What is a typical American motel, even those who have never happened in the States. For what thank Hollywood. Single-storey (less than two-storey) rows of standard cubic recorders, usually built in the form of our "NS". Entry to each room is an individual, from the courtyard, parking in front of the entrance. Often in the middle of the courtyard (especially it is common in the southern states) – the pool, illuminated at night.

And no adoption of a large city hotel – restaurant, bar, conference room and T. NS. American motel is not designed for guests for a long time in it stuck. Spend the night with comfort – that’s all that is required. In the afternoon, as a rule, it is empty and generally has the point of unassuming simply, belessless and economically. However, you are pre-guaranteed a decent level of convenience, and you can do without prior booking and inspection of numbers.

But neon pointers on high shields – so that it is clearly seen from the night highway – differ in variety and fiction. Usually called the minimum necessary information: what and how much. Everything is aimed at solving to stop for the night, the driver turned out here, and the NA to the neighbor is a competitor in a hundred meters further on the highway.

Breaking a characteristic feature of American motels – in order to spend the night in them, no formalities are required. It’s just a find for those who do not want to attract attention. In hotels, as a rule, you need, at least for the pro forma, fill out some meaningless guest cards – but not only in motels. Here you just post cash, get the key, and no one is interested in your person, nor, God forbid, your companion, awaiting in the car. Entrance to the room, as already mentioned, separate. It is not by chance that the motel is perceived by the Americans as an attribute of a mystery life – in particular, as the synonym for Aduylter and Gangster "Raspberries".

"Subsequently, I have repeatedly laughed, remembering my inexperience – as I wanted to find this hotel with a whimsal name, while the neon signs of countless motels were offered along the whole way, the neon signs of countless motels offered loose rooms, ready to take anyone – commruises, runaway convicts, impotents , big families, as well as the most crushing and insatiable couples". It’s from "Lolita" – books, if reading carefully, also about American "Motelkova" (word – invention of Nabokov) civilization.

Outdoor for a safe

Even before motels in America, campings appeared, reminding the descendants of the Wild West Conquerors of the Bivak of Migrants – with the only difference that instead of tents to services "Cowboy" There were dyskhatnye showcases, but instead stable – parking.

First, the city authorities welcomed the construction of campgrounds, seeing the good help of the budget. However, over time, these nights have turned into a headache for the surrounding inhabitants: Mountains of garbage, antisanitaria (baths and souls have no time), drunken, maidens. The typical caricature of that time depicts dirty autotourists who have fallen into the room as a canning jar: ". They have one shirt and one twenty-collar bill – both undelivered".

Another prototype of motels – cottage camps (Cottage Camps), the first of which was built by some Askins in 1901 in Douglas (Arizona) and was nine one-story buildings. In 1910 "Cottage camp Askins" changed the name on "Tourist innocent courtyard" (Tourist Inn). From the guests they took 50 cents per night and additionally 25 cents per each bucket of coal.

On the east coast, the tourist houses were distributed (Tourist Houses or Tourist Cours) – what we call the guesthouse. These were usually the rooms that the owners of residential buildings were handed over for the night, the level of service in such establishments was kept in strict follow-up to the Americans with the principle: Morn and Pop – "Everything like mammies with a daddy".

Motels began to enter the fashion in the mid-30s. And many of those – "Prehistoric" – Objects were not deprived of individuality due to local flavor. True, it was only a true traveler, who and in a tent from the fire comfortably.

Starry hour of motels fell on the first post-war decade when the fundamental changes in the US Road System caused a true revolution in the life of the Americans. Traveling by car across the country has become not just a hobby – it seemed all America was broken from.

President Duight Eisenhower came to mind idea to cover the country with wide multi-row motorways (Highways) with roadside infrastructure, including gas station, police station, telephones, car service, made outside of cities, shopping centers, toilets, snack bars. and motels! During the war, Eisenhower commanded the combined forces of allies in Europe, and it could not make impressions of exemplary German autobahns. Apparently, the general decided that the winners were not tolerant to take into account some of the defeated

For Americans, nation on wheels, neon pointer with the word Motel has become a magic sign. Motel is a house for one night, road shelter, the passage required to go on the road in the morning.

As for the conditions. Nabokov B "Lolite" It is divided by non-locking observations – the vulgar names, the smell of impurities, towels, filled with the rear tank of the toilet, instructions that call customers do not throw the place of tin from under beer, milk bags, miscarriages. But what caused shock from an unprepared foreigner, the Americans were perceived as due. Their next invention has become an object of nationwide love.

In the 60s, the USA began to build interstates – high-speed multi-row highways, which wanted a simple single-storey motels with a symbol of America. Interstates crossed the whole country from the West to the East and from the north to south and differed from highways by the fact that they were laid, fundamentally bypassing settlements. Pragmatism defeated: From now on, the road meant only as the most quick and efficient achievement of the desired goal – without romantic nights in unfamiliar towns. Now drivers waited for typical comfortable high-rise hotels owned by well-known networks: Holiday Inn, for example.

Relief in the network

It was Holiday Inn that became the first sketch of the serial hotel business. Today, the name of this transnational corporation is no less known than McDonald’s. How does advertising read, in "Universal supermarket" Holiday Inn You can buy everything that only has the hospitality industry.

The success of the network is resting on three whales: relatively temperate prices, iron maintenance standard (for Middle American, this is much more important than the individual style) and the successful location of hotels (usually build them near the airports, on the entrances to the cities and just next to the highway those places where you will get to twilight from the nearest settlement).

In general, nothing extraordinary – but also the lack of unpleasant surprises is guaranteed. Starting from 1975 Advertising Slogan Corporation Holiday Inn – The Best Surprise IS No Surprise, "Best Surprise – Lack of Surprises" (Before it were others – Your Host From Coast to Coast "Your refuge from the coast to the coast", for example).

Today, every Holiday Inn hotel is no different from any of his fellow people, in whatever part of the world he was. Take at least a unified system of benefits: PRIORITY PASS membership card gives at least 10% savings when booking a room, children under 19 can live in one room with parents (Kids Stay Free), organizers of all sorts of congresses and conferences enjoy large discounts, providing prosperity to most American hotels.

It all started in 1952. Businessman Cermsu Wilson, who traveled with his family on the car, at some point he is characterized by the then Motel Service. Dwelled, shabby roadside establishments, decided Wilson, maybe they arranged the first generations of Americans who had chosen on a big road (that is, on the highway) – but new times require new standards. Enough! All this romance in the age of Interstates inappropriate. You give air conditioning, telephone, TV and, most importantly, standard!

"For people like Wilson, – wrote one of "Chronicles" Holiday Inn, – The most cute business to dangle on the white light after the sun, climbing the hills, break through the jungle, cross the endless prairies – and all in order to find the perfect place to build a new hotel!" In one year, hiring intelligent designers, Wilson brought his idea to mind. The name of the future hotel empire was born by chance: someone from the artists remembered the popular Musical film 1942 "Holiday Inn" With the participation of Bing Crosby – about the country hotel, which worked on the weekend (Holiday Inn – "Stage yard for weekends").

The first Holiday Inn was solemnly discovered on Summer Avenue in Memphis (Tennessee) in 1953. From customers there were not a penalty, and Wilson immediately elevated three more hotels – one at each of the highway leading to Memphis. This tactic – "attach" Cities on all sides – successfully applied by the owner of the hotel empire and further.

Wilson somehow stated his wife: "I’m going to start building 400 hotels across the country". After 20 years, his portrait decorated Time magazine cover: By that time, Wilson owned 1405 hotels around the world! In 1995, their number reached 2000 (in 61 countries).

In the eighties, Holiday Inn entered a transnational monster. By this time, the concept "American Motel" lost its primary meaning. True, there were more thousands "old" motels and houses for tourists who worked on the principle of Morn and Pop, but it was already clear that their days were considered. Multi-storey standard hotels virtually crowded these institutions from the market. In particular, the deadly blow caused them the emergence of a single computerized HOLYDEX booking system. In 1980, Cermx Wilson was shifted from the post of Chairman of the Board of Directors. And in the 1990th, the Holiday Inn network sold on the British beer concern BASSO, which could be considered a symbolic end "Motelkova" America.

However, motels managed to become an integral part of the national cultural landscape – along with Highways. This is an American phenomenon and a symbol of American life. Remove them, and will not become America itself. At least the one that is known worldwide on books and films. Americans are extremely reverent to everything that they consider shrines, and it is not surprising that they rushed to defend "old" Motels when the threat of complete disappearance.

Today in the States there are numerous security companies "historical" motels (and even entire highways like the legendary Route 66 – once the only highway bonding the East and West). Money is actively going to maintain their pristine species, conferences are held, charitable evenings – this nostalgic rush is vigorously supported by mighty film studios.

Do not forget about the motel in San Luisobispo. The building of the Spanish mission, in which Motel Inn was located, turned into ruins, and this circumstance did not give a rest of Bob Davis for many years – the owner of the Apple Farm Inn Motel. Davis bought an abandoned historical object for a scentual, but he had no money for restoration. He went down the usual way to the United States: raised the noisy campaign in the press, led the siege of banks, corporations and charitable foundations, and naturally, in patriotism, peculiar to every American. And succeed: funds for restoration were found.

Today, the places in Apple Farm Inn must be booked in advance – the mass of those who want to visit, it would seem, the God forgotten San Luis Obispo and spend the night next to the first motel