A New York City woman meeting a friend at the Alex Hotel in Manhattan was surprised when a desk clerk asked her for identification as she waited in the lobby.
New York Times columnist Joe Sharkey reported the incident, quoting the woman as saying she was “kind of dumbfounded.” She said she was irritated because she believed a hotel lobby was a public place.
But Mary Lou Pollack, the general manager of the hotel, said the front desk scrutiny was in part because of the location of the hotel near the United Nations.
But she also said the move was to prevent prostitution from nearby Lexington Avenue.
“We made the hotel as obviously unfriendly as possible to people who wanted to have no identity,” she said.
Columnist Sharkey said that “this business of increasingly having to show your papers in this country is a can of worms for travelers.”
He reported sitting in the lobby for ten minutes without being asked for any identification. “Granted, it was mid-afternoon and I am a middle-aged male,” he said.
Report by David Wilkening
