Isn't it neat that his parents named him after a hotel?

Where the north tower of the Westin Hotel now soars 47 stories into the air, there once was a hotel called the Ben Franklin.



The hotel was not memorable, and I can't find much information about it. I know that the Doormen wore colonial outfits (to fit in with the name) and that it was grafted onto the much new Washington Plaza Hotel, which was built in 1969 on the site of the former Orpheum theatre, and was considered to be the lesser accomodations. When it was gone, it was gone, and nobody mourned it.

But it did have one cool thing: The outrigger.


The Outrigger was founded by the legendary Trader Vic - Vic Bergeron, who later had a whole chain of his "Trader Vic's" restaurants in many of the finest commercial hotels in the country. (They were everywhere: The Plaza in New York, The Palmer House in Chicago, the Benson in Portland, The Hilton in Detroit, The Beverly Hilton - I could go on and on.) The Outrigger closed in 1979 or thereabouts when the Ben Franklin was demolised to make way for the Westin, and a new Trader Vic's was opened on the motor level of the Washington Plaza (which is now the south tower of the Westin.)

I was never in the Outrigger. (I was MUCH too young! Literally a CHILD when it closed) but I was working at the Westin when Trader Vic's closed (to be replaced by a sushi bar which has since closed, leaving the spot empty) It was a legendary party, with many of us employees getting very drunk indeed.

There is a new Trader Vic's in Bellevue, and I really should go to visit it, but it looks like something someone would describe as "airy", and not at all like the dark, sinister and fun Trader Vic's of yesteryear.

So anyway, there's your lesson about the Ben Franklin. Astound your friends with this bit of knowledge.

UPDATE: Here's a picture of the entrance of the Outrigger from Fifth Avenue that I promised you. It was just down the street from the Town Center Motel.

Don't even try to tell me you don't wish you could have gone there.