Athénée Palace
Encyclopedia
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
, Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, now a Hilton, may have been Europe's most notorious den of spies in the years leading up to World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, and only slightly less so during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
.
Located in the heart of Bucharest on Str. Episcopiei at the corner of Calea Victoriei
Calea Victoriei
Calea Victoriei is a major avenue in central Bucharest. It leads from Splaiul Independenţei to the north and then northwest up to Piaţa Victoriei, where Şoseaua Kiseleff continues north....
on the former site of the Han Gherasi (Han is Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
for "inn"), the hotel faces onto the small park in front of the Romanian Athenaeum
Romanian Athenaeum
The Romanian Athenaeum is a concert hall in the center of Bucharest, Romania and a landmark of the Romanian capital city. Opened in 1888, the ornate, domed, circular building is the city's main concert hall and home of the "George Enescu" Philharmonic and of the George Enescu annual international...
on Revolution Square (originally Athenaeum Square, then Republic Square). It did not originally face onto a square: at the time the hotel was built, the space that is now a small park was occupied by the Splendid Hotel, destroyed by bombing on August 24, 1944, and there were a considerable number of other buildings on what is now the square.
History
The Athénée Palace, designed by the FrenchFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
architect Théophile Bradeau, built 1912–1914, and modernized 1935–1937 by Duiliu Marcu
Duiliu Marcu
Duiliu Marcu was a Romanian architect. He studied at the Bucharest Superior School of Architecture and the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris where he graduated in 1912.-Design:...
, was the first building in Bucharest to use reinforced concrete
Reinforced concrete
Reinforced concrete is concrete in which reinforcement bars , reinforcement grids, plates or fibers have been incorporated to strengthen the concrete in tension. It was invented by French gardener Joseph Monier in 1849 and patented in 1867. The term Ferro Concrete refers only to concrete that is...
construction; damaged by bombing during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, it was remodeled after being taken over by the Communist government
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
in 1948, and again damaged in the Romanian Revolution of 1989
Romanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...
(some of whose worst violence occurred in the square immediately in front of the hotel). It was and remodeled (and expanded) yet again by Hilton International in 1995–1997.
Describing the hotel as it looked in 1938, A. L. Easterman of London's Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
and later of the Daily Herald referred to its "heavily ornate furnishings, marble and gold pillars, great glittering chandeliers, and the deep settees placed well back in the recesses of the lounge as if inviting conspiracy."
New York Times foreign correspondent C. L. Sulzberger
C. L. Sulzberger
Cyrus Leo Sulzberger II was a U.S. journalist, diarist, and author, and a member of the family that owns the New York Times. During the 1940s and 1950s, he was that newspaper's lead foreign correspondent....
wrote in his memoir A Long Row of Candles that as World War II was approaching, he settled into the Athénée Palace "to enjoy my wait for war… This was a comfortable establishment with excellent service…a corrupt staff always seeking to change a customer's money at black-market rates, and continual competition by ladies of easy or nonexistent virtue to share the warmth of a client's bed." "Countess" R. G. Waldeck
R. G. Waldeck
Rosie Goldschmidt Waldeck born Rosa Goldschmidt, also known as Rosie Waldeck and by several other variants of her name, was the author of several works including Prelude to the past; the autobiography of a woman and Athene Palace...
wrote of the hotel in the same era, "Here was the heart of Bucharest, topographically, artistically, intellectually, politically—and, if you like, morally." It was also home at the time to both British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
spies and the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
. A. L. Easterman called it the "most notorious caravanserai
Caravanserai
A caravanserai, or khan, also known as caravansary, caravansera, or caravansara in English was a roadside inn where travelers could rest and recover from the day's journey...
in all Europe. …the meeting place of the Continental spies, political conspirators, adventurers, concession hunters, and financial manipulators. "
In 1948 the hotel was nationalized by the new Communist government
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
, who famously bugged every room, tapped every phone (and every pay phone within half a mile), and staffed the entire hotel with informers. Dan Halpern writes, "The hotel's general director was an undercover colonel in the Securitate's Counterespionage Directorate; the hotel's deputy director was a colonel in the DIE, the Romanian external intelligence organization. The doormen did surveillance; the housekeeping staff photographed all documents in the guests' rooms. The prostitutes in the lobby and in the bar and in the nightclub reported directly to their employers; the free-speaking bons vivants and Romanian intellectuals hanging around the café, not to mention a number of the guests, had been planted."
The government-run Athénée Palace closed in 1994 and was bought at auction by Hilton International, who proceeded to do a $42 million renovation and expansion, reopening the hotel at nearly twice its former size in 1997, adding conference rooms and a business center.