Westminster Hotel, cor. of Irving Place and 16th St. New York Roberts & Palmer Prop
1On returning from St. Louis, Clemens spent four or five days at the Metropolitan before moving on 19 April to the Westminster (“Arrivals in the City,” New York Times, 20 Apr 67, 8). It is possible that he had roomed at the Westminster before going to St. Louis, since his Alta letters written on 2 and 18 February allude to his rooming in East Sixteenth Street (SLC 1867 [MT00525]–o). In a later letter to the Alta, he summarized his reasons for preferring “the European system” recently adopted by hotels like the Westminster, where everything was “quiet, and genteel and orderly.” He noted that “it is costly, but it is comfortable—prodigiously comfortable,” especially in comparison with the “great caravan hotels” like the Metropolitan (SLC 1867 [MT00540]).