vintage Brown Hotel (Louisville, Kentucky) Postcard

High resolution photograph (10.5 MB, 18.0 MIO Pix.) of a vintage postcard from our own collection, restored, retouched, colors enhanced, matching borders added). The Brown Hotel is an historic 16-story hotel in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, U.S., located on the corner of Fourth and Broadway. It contains 293 rooms and over 24,000 ft² of meeting space. It also contains special amenities, such as a fitness center and three restaurants. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The hotel was designed by Preston J. Bradshaw and opened in 1923, only 10 months after construction began. The hotel cost $4 million, and was funded and owned by James Graham Brown, a local entrepreneur. The hotel quickly became a central part of the growing downtown Louisville economy. In 1926 the hotel chef Fred K. Schmidt introduced the Hot Brown sandwich, consisting of an open-faced "sandwich" of turkey and bacon smothered with cheese and tomato. The Hot Brown became rather popular among locals and visitors alike, and can be ordered at many local restaurants in the area today. The sandwich was featured on the 2002 PBS documentary Sandwiches That You Will Like. Many famous people visited the hotel in its early years. David Lloyd George former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was the first person to sign the guest register, and Queen Marie of Romania also visited. The famous soprano Lily Pons was allowed to bring her pet lion along with her, and it roamed free in her room. In an odd coincidence, actor Victor Mature was an elevator operator at the hotel before becoming famous. The Broadway entrance to the Brown Hotel. The combination of Prohibition and the Great Depression led to hard times for the hotel in the early 1930s. The Brown defaulted on its loan, and the bank threatened foreclosure. Employees were asked to work for periods without pay, and the Brown was only able to stay open due to the employees' willingness to do so. From Wikipedia, read more on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Hotel_%28Louisville,_Kentucky%29