Corinthia Hotel Budapest
The Corinthia Hotel Budapest at the Elizabeth Boulevard in Budapest, is a historic luxury hotel. Opened in 1896 as the Grand Hotel Royal, a hub for the elite of 19th century society, the hotel has undergone extensive modification throughout the 20th century, and has in the 21st century been restored and reopened as the Corinthia.
History
Location
The course of the Grand Boulevard was marked out during the 1870s, together with Andrássy Avenue, Budapest's most impressive avenue. The road went through a thinly populated part of suburban Budapest, so its development was slow, and only a few buildings were constructed in the 1870s. The real development of the Grand Boulevard began once Andrássy Street was completed in 1884. A joint-stock company was established by the hotel owners, including the chairman Mr. Frigyes Glück and architect Mr. Rezső Ray, which purchased the largest piece of real estate on the developing Grand Boulevard, which was becoming the main artery of the capital city.Grand Hotel Royal
[Image:Royal szálló 1900.jpg|thumb|left|Grand Hotel Royal, 1900]The Grand Hotel Royal opened 30 April 1896, to serve visitors attending the Millennium Exhibition, which celebrated the 1000th anniversary of crowning the first Hungarian king. The hotel rooms enjoyed superb views of this most attractive part of Budapest. The 350-hotel was designed in the French Renaissance style and included an adjacent building and attic rooms for servants.
Guests had access to two restaurants, a café, a Gerbeaud confectionery, private dining rooms, a post office, a bank, a hairdresser, and a ticket office. A grocery store and a bar were located in the cellar. In the western cour d'honneur, a palm garden made the court more attractive. After its opening, the Royal became a regular haunt of contemporary Hungarian writers and journalists, including Jenő Heltay, Sándor Hunyadi, Lajos Nagy and Gyula Krúdy.
The first screening of a motion picture in Budapest, by the Lumiére brothers, took place at the hotel. Several classical concerts were held in the Royal Ballroom, and Béla Bartók, the Hungarian composer, frequently conducted music there. The Royal soon became a topic of journalists. In 1909, the first Hungarian airplane was exhibited in one of the hotel's cour d'honneur. With the growing popularity of movies, the hotel's ballroom was rebuilt as the Royal Apollo cinema.
Decline, fall and rise
[Image:Budapest, VII. Erzsébet (Lenin) körút 43-49., a Royal Szálló (ma Corinthia Hotel) bejárata. Fortepan 102867.jpg|thumb|left|Grand Hotel Royal entrance, 1960s]The hotel was badly damaged in World War II. It gradually reopened after the war, and by 1953 there were 170 hotel rooms on two floors, while the rest of the building contained offices. The hotel was again badly damaged during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, when organizers of the revolt gathered in the building, and Soviet tanks shelled it on 4 November 1956. The Hungarian communist government rebuilt the hotel with completely modern interiors, designed by architect István Janáky, that fit with the 'space idealism' of the time. The movie theater in the hotel's old ballroom reopened in 1959 as the Red Star cinema, with its entrance on Hársfa Street. The Grand Hotel Royal reopened on 20 August 1961, with 367 guest rooms.
By the late 1980s, the aging state-run hotel had become obsolete and with the end of communism in Hungary, the Grand Hotel Royal closed in October 1991, although the cinema continued operating until autumn 1997.