Juhász Gyula - Szántó András: Hotels - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1999)

The Carlton’s terrace

gentlemen who fancied a dance. It was part of the services on offer that “foreign magazines and daily papers from all over the world” were readily available. To have a laundry, a hairdresser’s and a tailor’s shop on the premises was only to be expected, but a hotel with a garage of its own was a novelty, and the car fleet owned by the establishment was also unique in the city. “The management of the hotel organises, with no interest in financial gain whatsoever, trips to areas where peculiar folk costume is still worn and to cities of historical interest, ” announced a contemporary brochure.

Opened in 1946 in the section that survived World War II, the successor of the Bristol was the only post-war hotel on the Danube bank. It was given the name Hotel Danube in 1948 and in 1953 underwent considerable reconstruction. In 1957 it received guests in as many as 99 rooms. Those overlooking the Danube were fitted with imitation Baroque and mock American colonial furniture. In 1962, an espresso bar complete with “modern” overhead lighting fitted into the suspended ceiling, display fronted freezers, small tables and uncomfortable chairs was added to the existing reading rooms and restaurants featuring carved wooden panelling and fireplaces. Between 1953 an 1956, Lulu Solymosi played the piano in the bar on the mezzanine floor. His place, left vacant when he emigrated after the revolution, was taken by the Szabó-Beamter duo, who would play here until the death of József Szabó in 1963.

From the mid-sixties onwards, “five-o’-clock teas” were held on the terrace at the weekends, open from spring

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