Then, when I started another restaurant at Twenty-sixth Street, the 'Old Martin' became the Lafayette." The artists and writers came to the Hotel Martin to invite their respective Muses inspired by Mr.Martin's excellent food and drink.
From the bachelors' quarters on the nearby square--the Benedick and other studio houses--shabby, ambitious young men came in droves.

Mr.
Martin remembers "Bob" Chambers, and some young newspaper men from the _World_--Goddard, Manson and others.

From uptown the great foreigners came down--some of them stayed there, indeed.

In 1889, approximately, it started its biggest boom, and it went on steadily.

Ask either Mr.
Martin or its present proprietor, Mr.Raymond Orteig, and he will tell you, and truthfully, that it has never flagged, that "boom." The place is as popular as ever, because, in a changing world, a changing era and a signally changing town, it--does not change.
It was to the Hotel Martin that the famous singers came--Jean and Edouard de Reszke and Pol Plancon and Melba; the French statesman, Jules Cambon, used to come, and Maurice Grau--then the manager of the Metropolitan--and Chartran, the celebrated painter, and the great Ysaye and Bartholdi.