Hotel Industry

Building on such a massive scale was tremendously expensive, and hotels cost from eight to thirty times as much as had been spent on even the finest taverns. Early hotels quickly became important centers of politics, business, and sociability. The City Hotel in New York, for example, became the center of the Gotham elite's business pursuits and elegant society balls, and Washington's Union Public Hotel housed the U.S. Congress in 1814–1815 after the British army destroyed part of the Capitol.

• Building on such a massive scale was tremendously expensive, and hotels cost from eight to thirty times as much as had been spent on even the finest taverns. Early hotels quickly became important centers of politics, business, and sociability. The City Hotel in New York, for example, became the center of the Gotham elite's business pursuits and elegant society balls, and Washington's Union Public Hotel housed the U.S. Congress in 1814–1815 after the British army destroyed part of the Capitol.