West allowed friends like Edmund Wilson, Erskine Caldwell, S. J. Perelman and Maxwell Bodenheim free room and meals.
[3] [4] From Lonely Hearts, published in 2010 by Marion Meade:[5] "Kenmore Hall, a pretty redbrick residence hotel not yet two years old, was home to hundreds of young professionals who booked by the week or month.
Prized for its desirable address near Gramercy Park, its reasonable rates, and amenities such as a pool and roof garden, the place always had a waiting list for vacancies, sometimes a long one.
He knew exactly when they awoke and when they left for their offices, who got mail and from whom, what time they went to bed, and which ones couldn't sleep, because the bleary-eyed were known to shuffle down to the lobby and fret about it, as if he could do anything.
[7] Despite entreaties by federal and local authorities over a period of years, the hotel's ownership failed to take corrective action and the Kenmore became "a beehive of narcotics-related activities, including the sale, distribution, preparation, packaging and/or possession of narcotics.