He arrived on the 25th of June, and on the 26th he bought the hotel! He chose a house on University Place--No.

17--a little _pension_ kept by one Eugene Larru, and from time to time bought the adjoining houses and built extensions until he had made it the building we see today.

He called it the Hotel de Panama.
But it was not as the Hotel de Panama that it won its unique place in the hearts of New Yorkers.

"In 1886," Mr.Martin says, "I decided to change the name of my place.

'Panama' gave people a bad impression.
They associated it with fever and Spaniards, and neither were popular! So it became the Hotel Martin.