The bell tolls for New York's best loved Irishman

By KAREN MCCARTHY
Dec 24, 2006

Word Count: 900

In 1949 Michael O'Connell's voyage from Limerick landed the 17-year old on Manhattan's 49th Street dock with big plans to explore New York. Instead, his uncle put him to work at the Carlyle, one of New York's most prestigious Upper East Side Hotels. For the next 56 years he donned a bell captains uniform to meet some of the world's most celebrated figures including Harry Truman, John F Kennedy, James Cagney, Indira Gandhi and many more. Last month, having accumulated a lifetime of iconic anecdotes, he hung up his uniform and severed his link to a past great American era.

"The guests were very good to me," said O'Connell putting on the kettle in his three-storey Brooklyn home that their generous tips helped him buy. It's a house out of time with its wood panelling and china cabinets that have remained untouched since his wife of 40 years, Jean, passed away.

"I was hoping I wouldn't meet anyone important," he said recalling his first day at work. "When who came out of the elevator only Harry Truman." The teenager thought it fair to warn the former president about the photographers waiting in ambush outside.

"I better give them a good walk," said the mischievous Truman who enjoyed a long daily march. Carlyle lore tells how he arrived back at the hotel, headed straight for the bar and ordered Old Grand-Dad bourbon.

"If you had to walk 15 blocks with those guys following you," he said to the bartender "you'd drink this too."

The Carlyle was a quiet alternative for America's wealthy in the early 50s. It was build two decades earlier by Moses Ginsburg, a Russian immigrant as a residential hotel in order to provide "freedom from the servant problem." When the campaigning John F Kennedy began to visit in the late 50s things perked up. Rooms were booked solid with prominent ambassadors, politicians, celebrities and royalty.

"When Kennedy stayed there the lobby was always crowded," said O'Connell. "He never left without talking to everyone."

Another Carlyle regular was world-renowned violinist Isaac Stern.

"See him," Stern said, pointing to Kennedy. "He thinks he's going to be president." Every day afterwards the musician was in the lobby to greet him. The politician always took his hand and asked, "How are you young man?"

In November 1963 the President waded through the usual milling crowd and said, "See you in a couple of weeks." Two days later a local shopkeeper ran into the hotel and announced he was dead.

"People came out of the dining room, dumbstruck" said O'Connell with his voice shaking. "One man still had a napkin stuffed in his collar. I saw Isaac Stern sitting alone crying like anything."

One rainy day Gary Cooper tried to skip the queue of guests waiting hopefully for the most elusive object during a New York downpour.

"Michael I really need a taxi," he whispered.

The bell captain called his friend Mike Farrell who had a beat up Caddy and grand aspirations to own a limo company. Farrell was stuck in traffic only a few blocks away so O'Connell grabbed an umbrella and walked the celebrity fare to him. From then on, Cooper called Farrell when he needed a New York City driver and today the Irishman is the proud owner of 90 limousines.

In the early 80s Elizabeth Taylor moved into the hotel during her first Broadway role in "The Little Foxes." On her way back from a brief hospital stay she noticed a sign the construction workers had erected on a building opposite the hotel: "Liz you're a helluva lady." She had lunch sent from the Carlyle kitchens for all of them.

At that time the rules relaxed a little and with that came the Rolling Stones who were "up all night, slept all day and were rarely seen," and Elton John who got out of the elevator with a sneaker on one foot and a boot on the other.

The bell captain was happiest to see Irish guests. After lunch with Indira Gandhi during the UN General Assembly, Taoiseach Jack Lynch came to the lobby for a chat. It turned out O'Connell's cousin was Lynch's best friend.

"It was great to feel that connection to home," he remembered fondly.

But sometimes being asked about Ireland stirred a wistful memory of his old small Limerick town. James Cagney stayed at the Carlyle during the making of "The Terrible Joe Moran." Cagney was confined to a wheelchair having suffered a stroke so O'Connell met him every morning, sneaked him past the photographers and pushed him to set. Cagney owned a farm and had a particular fondness for Galway so they swapped stories about family, farming and Ireland.

"There was something about Cagney that made everyone like him," the bellman said. "He always had a jolly demeanour and never complained about anything despite the wheelchair."

Now O'Connell's easy banter with American icons has come to an end. The 76-year old instead spends all his time with his six children and two grandchildren in a rare Brooklyn neighbourhood where families still gather on stoops, children play on the street, and the block resounds with the familiar chime of Angelus bells.

"If Ireland was then what it is now, I wouldn't have left," he said pondering what life would have been had he not boarded the Cunard Liner in 49. "Now the Irish are staying at the Carlyle, not working there."