The Hotel Florida was situated in

Callao Square The Callao Square ( es, plaza del Callao) is located at the centre of the Spanish capital of Madrid. History and description Shaped in 1861, the square was formally opened in June 1866; its name remembers the May 1866 battle of Callao between t ...

in central

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

, Spain. It was built in 1924 and was used as a base by many of the foreign correspondents stationed in Madrid during the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...

. While based in Spain as a correspondent for the North American News Association (NANA),

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...

stayed at the hotel, where he wrote a play. The hotel was demolished in 1964 and a department store was built on the site.

History

The architect

Antonio Palacios Antonio Palacios Ramilo (8 January 1874 – 27 October 1945) was a Spanish architect. Distinguished by the monumental eclecticism he left as imprint in many of his projects, he helped define the architectural identity of Madrid in the first half ...

designed and built the hotel on a site in the

Plaza de Callao The Callao Square ( es, plaza del Callao) is located at the centre of the Spanish capital of Madrid. History and description Shaped in 1861, the square was formally opened in June 1866; its name remembers the May 1866 battle of Callao between t ...

, on the Gran Vía (then under construction). It was inaugurated in February 1924. The whole façade of the building was marble. The hotel's 200 rooms, each with a bathroom, achieved fame during the Civil War, when it became the residence of correspondents, foreign writers and intellectuals featured in Madrid during its siege.

Mikhail Koltsov Mikhail Efimovich Koltsov (russian: Михаи́л Ефи́мович Кольцо́в) (The record of the birth of Moisey Fridlyand in the metric book of the Kiev rabbinate for 1898 ( ЦГИАК Украины. Ф. 1164. Оп. 1. Д. 442. Л. 13 ...

, Geoffrey Cox,

Henry Buckley Henry Buckley (21 June 1813 – 14 April 1888) was an Australian politician. He was a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for two terms between 1856 and 1859 and after the creation of the separate colony of Queensland he became ...

Ksawery Pruszyński Franciszek Ksawery Pruszyński (4 December 1907 – 13 June 1950) was a Polish journalist, publicist, writer and diplomat. He was one of the most active and operative of Polish newspaper reporters. Biography He was born in Wolica Kierekieszyna ...

, Wiadomosci Literackie and Herbert L. Matthews were among the members of this community, which also met in the nearby headquarters of

Telefónica Telefónica, S.A. () is a Spanish multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Madrid, Spain. It is one of the largest telephone operators and mobile network providers in the world. It provides fixed and mobile telephony, broadba ...

and the Hotel Gran Vía. For a time

and his mistress, later his third wife,

Martha Gellhorn Martha Ellis Gellhorn (8 November 1908 – 15 February 1998) was an American novelist, travel writer, and journalist who is considered one of the great war correspondents of the 20th century. Gellhorn reported on virtually every major worl ...

used the hotel as their base in Madrid. Hemingway was at the hotel during the Spanish Civil War and on a daily basis he expected a bomb to land on his typewriter. He wrote '' The Fifth Column'' during the siege itself.

John Dos Passos John Roderigo Dos Passos (; January 14, 1896 – September 28, 1970) was an American novelist, most notable for his ''U.S.A.'' trilogy. Born in Chicago, Dos Passos graduated from Harvard College in 1916. He traveled widely as a young man, visit ...

also passed through the Florida and immortalized his stay in an article called ''Room with a bathroom in the Hotel Florida'', published by ''

Esquire Esquire (, ; abbreviated Esq.) is usually a courtesy title. In the United Kingdom, ''esquire'' historically was a title of respect accorded to men of higher social rank, particularly members of the landed gentry above the rank of gentlema ...

'' magazine in January 1938. The last such war correspondent staying in Hotel Florida was O. D. Gallagher, sent by the London ''

Daily Express The ''Daily Express'' is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadsheet i ...

'', said to be the only foreigner who waited to see Franco's troops enter Madrid. The hotel was also a favourite haunt for

Frank Tinker Frank Glasgow Tinker (July 14, 1909 – June 13, 1939) was an American volunteer fighter pilot for the ''Fuerzas Aéreas de la República Española'' ("Air Forces of the Spanish Republic"; FARE), during the Spanish Civil War. Tinker was cr ...

and other U.S. mercenary fighter pilots enlisted with the loyalist forces during the civil war, who relished the opportunity to stop by for a hot bath whenever they could make it to Madrid. In 2006, the Instituto Cervantes y la Fundación Pablo Iglesias opened an exhibition in New York called the "War Correspondents in Spain", covering the work and adventures of many of the people of the Florida. The reception and main hall of the Hotel Florida were reproduced in the old train station in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

, for the filming of the HBO production ''

Hemingway & Gellhorn ''Hemingway & Gellhorn'' is a 2012 television film directed by Philip Kaufman about the lives of journalist Martha Gellhorn and her husband, writer Ernest Hemingway. The film premiered at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival and aired on HBO on May 28, ...

'' (2012).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Florida Hotel buildings completed in 1924 Hotels in Madrid Defunct hotels in Spain Hotel Florida Hotel Florida Demolished buildings and structures in Madrid Hotels established in 1924 Hotels disestablished in 1964 Hotel Florida Hotel Florida Hotel Florida Demolished hotels

History

See also

References