The Sabra Hotel Story

1962

A True Story

My mother’s adventure on Miami Beach

Written 2010* 1,880 Words

#154 By Howard Yasgar

It was in 1961, when my father unexpectedly passed away in New Haven Connecticut.

My mother was a registered nurse at Grace New Haven hospital, and that’s when she decided that she needed to do something to change her life.

My mother had worked as the head floor nurse at the New Haven hospital, and later she worked as a private duty nurse, so she had plenty of nursing experience.

After my father’s death, my mother was depressed, and she felt that perhaps a move overseas was what she needed.

She had just read that there was a nursing shortage in Israel, and she thought that it might be a good idea to go there and apply for a job.

My mother felt that with her extensive nursing background she would be welcomed.

The next thing I knew, she had booked passage to Israel on a ship leaving from New York City.

The New York Port was about 70 miles from our house in Connecticut, so I drove her there, and my mother’s younger sister Lillian joined us for the trip.

At the New York port, surprisingly they allowed us to go on board the ship to see her cabin and her berth.

We were very surprised to see that the cabin was really very small, and had bunk beds.

I knew my mother wanted to try new things, but I never thought she would book a passage and then agree to sleep on the upper bunk, because mom was 50 years old at the time and she had never done anything like that before.

She said that once she arrived in Israel, she applied for work at a large hospital.

My mother was very surprised to find out, that you couldn’t work in Israel if you didn’t speak Hebrew.

So now she had to make a difficult decision, either to stay there in Israel and learn a new language or return to our home in Connecticut.

While in Israel, one of her friends introduced her to a fellow who was the publisher of the French newspaper in Tel Aviv.

But mom said it was so soon after the death of my father, and she became very uncomfortable with his constant attention.

So, after a few weeks, mom booked passage on a return ship to the United States.

While on her return voyage, she was befriended by a woman who was a real estate broker on Miami Beach.

She told my mother about a small 24-room hotel that was available for lease on Miami Beach, it was called the Hotel Norman.

She said that the hotel was located right on Collins Avenue, near 70th Street. and she

told my mom it was the opportunity of a lifetime.

The broker said that the hotel was right across the Street from some other very famous Miami Beach hotels, the Deauville, the Sterling and the Carillon.

According to the broker, the Norman hotel handled all the overflow coming from all those bigger hotels located across the street.

The broker said that it was very common for the big hotels to overbook or have customers overstay, so all the overflow was naturally going to be sent to the Norman hotel.

She said that one of the Norman hotels’ biggest clients was the Kosher Sterling hotel

that was located right across the street.

My Mother said she couldn’t resist leasing the Norman Hotel for two years for only $8,000.00 a year.

So, in late 1962, Mom called me from Miami Beach to inform me that she was now in the hotel business.

Naturally I was very concerned about her, and I thought that she might be making a big mistake.

I knew that my mother was a very intelligent woman, but she had no experience running a hotel.

So, in 1962, my mother was now going to be a hotel operator on Miami Beach.

In November of 1963, I had just gotten married, and that’s when my good friend Lou Gladstein asked me to go to Miami and run an auto wrecking business that he was leasing in North-West Miami.

At the time, I was looking for something interesting to do, so I told my new wife to pack up, as we were going on a honeymoon trip to Miami Beach, Florida.

Then I called my mother and told her we were coming. Mom was delighted and said she had a room waiting for us.

So, on a cold December morning in 1963, we headed from Westville Connecticut to Miami Beach, Florida.

We found the Norman Hotel, but it was not exactly what we had expected.

It was across the street from the big famous hotels, but it was on the second floor of a commercial building, and on the ground floor was a single glass door with an awning over it that said Hotel Norman. So, if you didn’t spot the awning, you would never find the hotel.

Underneath the Norman hotel, on the first floor was an auction gallery. Inside the auction gallery there were 50 or more metal folding chairs, and every evening the gallery opened its sliding glass doors and people just walked in off the street to sit and listen and buy things from the auctioneer.

When we first arrived, we entered the Norman Hotel by a glass door on the first floor.

Inside, on the right side was a staircase leading to the second floor and the hotel’s office.

Once we were upstairs, the hotel had 24 rooms, 12 on the left and 12 on the right.

The first room on the left had a sign saying it was the office.

The door was open we walked in and sitting at a small desk was my mother.

Mom’s bed and her dresser were on the right side of the room.

As we entered her room, piled up against the left side wall were about 8 or 10 knap sacks.

My mother was so happy to see us, and we were happy to see her.

I could see she was so proud of being a hotel operator, and she wanted to show us everything.

My mother said the first room was hers, and she used it as an office.

She said that a few of the rooms on the right side of the hallway were rented to seasonal customers as well as a couple of retired people, that rented rooms by the year.

Mom said that the Sterling Hotel across the Street did send her customers, but as the Sterling Hotel was a kosher hotel, all the people they sent over were orthodox Jews, and orthodox Jews can’t do anything mechanical after sundown on Friday night.

This required my mother to go to their room every Friday night and shut off the light switches so they could go to sleep.

Mom said that as far as the downstairs auction house was concerned, it brought in people from all over the world, she said that some of them were diamond and jewelry dealers, and many of them stayed there at her hotel.

She said it wasn’t bad having diamond dealers staying at the hotel because they were always taking her out to the best restaurants and the dog track.

I asked her what the knapsacks against the wall were for, and she said the Norman hotel attracted a lot of Hippies, and they just walked in off the street. However, most of them had no money, so mom always gave them a place to sleep, and they left their knapsacks as collateral, of course they never came back for them, mom said she knew she was a soft touch.

Mom said that the original name of the hotel was the Norman, but she had already ordered a new awning as she wanted to change the name to the Sabra, it was a word she had learned in Israel, it meant a native-born Israeli and mom said she just liked the word.

Then my mother gave us one of her best rooms. It had a big double bed and a television.

So, for us it really was just like being on a honeymoon.

Every morning, we just walked a few hundred yards to the street corner where the famous Pumperniks restaurant was, it was where they gave you a big basket of pastries and rolls for free with your breakfast.

One morning I went downstairs to wait for my wife for breakfast, and when she came down, I saw a police car stop on Collins Avenue and they asked her to come to them.

Seeing this, I walked over and asked if I could help.

They asked me who I was, and I told them I was her husband.

Then they asked if I could prove it, and I asked why, I told them my mother ran the Hotel Norman.

The police laughed and said the Hotel Norman had quite a reputation on Miami Beach, and they thought my wife might be one of the working girls. When I told my mom she said that she wasn’t surprised to hear it.

A couple of weeks later, I was downstairs standing on the sidewalk when I saw a black stretch limo pull up across the street in front of the Deauville Hotel.

As I watched several fellows in black suits, they got out and went into the hotel. It was the Beatles making their first U.S. Debut.

Every evening, lots of people strolled up and down Collins Avenue, many were coming to the auction house that was below the hotel.

So, mom rented her small hallway space to a chalk painting artist from Brazil, and he would do beautiful chalk portraits of the tourists for $15.00 ea.

Mom told us that she was having a wonderful time running the hotel, and she felt like the queen of Miami Beach. But she said that she never made a penny profit from it.

Between the cost of the lease and maintenance and the laundry bill, it cost her about $2000.00 extra every month.

So, to try and make up the difference mom said she ran an ad in the local offbeat Miami Beach newspaper, asking if anyone needed the assistance of a nurse.

She said she received lots of calls, but they all wanted colonic irrigations, or enemas.

When Mom asked them if they had a doctor’s prescription, they all said no, it was for sexual gratification, so mom said she removed her ad from the paper.

Finding out that my mom wasn’t making any money with the hotel made us feel bad as she wasn’t charging us for our room.

Also, my driving every day all the way from Miami Beach to the wrecking yard wore me out.

So, my wife then found us a $20.00 a week rental trailer in a trailer park on 79th street in Miami and we moved there.

My mother eventually did change the hotel awning to say Sabra Hotel, And she

continued running the hotel for two years until she completed her lease.

She said losing money running the hotel was alright with her as she felt that she was the Queen of Miami Beach for two years.

Once the lease was up, my mother then returned to our home in Westville Connecticut.

My wife and I decided to stay in Florida, and we always drive past the Norman Hotel every time we are on Miami Beach.

Eventually the awning was changed from Sabra Hotel back to The Norman Hotel.

The Auction house closed, and the Norman restaurant opened in its place.

It has been over 50 years since mom ran the Norman hotel, so we stopped by the Norman restaurant every so often for a hamburger and Mojito.

I still have a chalk drawing the Brazilian artist did of my mom as she stood on the hall stairway to the Norman Hotel.

For two years, I believed my mother truly was the queen of Miami Beach.

.