The Story
3rd Annual Hotel Ezra Cornell – 1928
Joseph P. Binns, Assistant Manager
In an effort to expand the events of the 3rd Hotel Ezra Cornell beyond a single banquet, the students invited all their guests to attend classes and observe the preparation of Friday’s banquet. Saturday morning witnessed the first HEC breakfast. Soon, HEC visitors would be able to partake in a full program of events and sample recreational pleasures, like the swimming hole at Buttermilk Falls.
The Best Ever: Memories of Hotel Ezra Cornell
At Cornell
Joseph P. Binns began his collegiate career at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance. He came to Cornell as a member of the Class of 1928, the fourth graduating class of the School of Hotel Administration. His experience as assistant manager of HEC 3 was, quite possibly, the start of a career that would recognize him as one of the most distinguished alumni of his era.
At Penn, Binns made the All-American soccer team, became a member of the honorary theatrical society, and belonged to Sigma Chi. At Cornell, he was an active member of the Dramatic Club, a member of Ye Hosts Honorary Society, and Hotel Ezra Cornell.
Early Business Career
Upon graduation from Cornell, Binns got his start in the hotel business as a room clerk at the Chalfonte-Haddon Hall Hotel in Atlantic City. In 1931, he became the assistant manager of the Claridge Hotel in that city, and a year later, its manager. Two years later, he joined the management team of Cambridge Realty Company, overseeing hotels, apartment houses, garages, and office buildings in Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and several other key cities. His next post was at Chicago’s Stevens Hotel, at that time the largest hotel in the world (3000 rooms). This hotel is now the Conrad Hilton Hotel. Binns went there in 1939 as general manager and stayed until he began his military service in 1942.
A Colonel in World War II
In 1942, Binns was commissioned as first lieutenant in the Army and rose to the rank of colonel in the Air Transport Command, serving as chief of supply and services in the European Division. He was awarded two Bronze Stars.
Hoover Commission
In 1953, Binns was made a member of the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, which was headed by former President Herbert Hoover. Mr. Binns directed a group of experts on food programs, mass food preparations and service, warehousing, laundry operations and related fields. His group studied the operations of the Veterans Administration, the Public Health Service and other Federal agencies.
The New York Times, November 1980
Joseph Binns with President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Congratulatory letter from
President Eisenhower
to EVP Joseph Binns on the
25th anniversary of the Waldorf-Astoria.
When I was a child, my grandfather told me that his job was to go to Paris, convert the finest hotels to army barracks and find a safe place for all the valuable rugs, artwork, etc. He said it went perfectly. I think he was well respected by General McArthur, even though McArthur was on the Pacific front.
~Joseph Binns Hall (grandson)
Joe would have had some additional contact with Gen. MacArthur when the General lived in the Waldorf Towers. There was a plaque in the Towers with the years of the General’s residency that I believe was in the fifties and early sixties.
~Rocco Angelo ’58
Photo of General Douglas MacArthur inscribed:
To Joe Binns, With Cordial Regard,
Douglas MacArthur
A Distinguished Career in Hospitality Leadership
Returning to civilian life after the war, Joseph Binns became general manager of the Hilton Hotel’s Palmer House in Chicago. In 1946, Hilton Hotels Corporation was formed and Binns was named vice president. The Corporation acquired the Stevens Hotel in Chicago, and in New York City, the Roosevelt, the New Yorker, and the Plaza where Binns became manager in 1948. When Conrad Hilton bought the Waldorf-Astoria in 1949, he put Mr. Binns, who was general manager of the Plaza Hotel, in charge of the 47-story Waldorf. At that time, the Waldorf was serving 6,000 guests daily.
Binns is the only hotelier to have run and supervised four of the world’s largest hotels of that era – The Conrad Hilton and Palmer House in Chicago, the Waldorf-Astoria and the New Yorker in New York.
One of the most distinguished alumni of his era, Joseph Binns ‘28 managed the Claridge in Atlantic City, the Plaza in New York, and the Stevens in Chicago on his way to becoming EVP and GM of the Waldorf Astoria and Conrad Hilton’s right hand man as VP of the Hilton Hotels Corporation. He brokered the sale of Hotels Statler to Hilton in 1954, convincing Alice Statler not to go through with a promised sale to real estate giant Zeckendorf that had been approved by the Statler board of trustees. At a price of $78 million, the Statler sale was one of the biggest hotel deals of that era.
Celebrating Ninety Years as the First and the Best!
Hotelie 90 – 90 Influential Hotelies
Conrad Hilton is inducted as an honorary member
of the Cornell Society of Hotelmen in May 1954,
the year he bought the Statler Hotels.
Wallace Lee Jr. ’36 made the presentation.
Excerpt from: Hospitality Leadership
Hilton buys Statler for $49,660,875 on October 27, 1954
At the Waldorf-Astoria, 1957. From left to right: Joseph Binns (looking toward Queen Elizabeth), Conrad Hilton, Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth (both waiving). The last person on the right is the mayor of New York City, Robert F. Wagner, Jr.
Loyal to His Alma Mater
Binn’s service to the school and its alumni spanned decades. From 1936-1938, he served as CHS Global President. In May 1955, he returned to his HEC roots as a featured speaker at HEC 30. In November 1977, he established the Joseph P. Binns ‘28 Scholarship, designated to provide undergraduate scholarship support for Hotel School students.
Joseph P. Binns ’28, vice president of Hilton Hotels and general manager of the Waldorf-Astoria, speaks at HEC 30 in May 1955.
Sharing a Memory
Indian creek was one of his residences and I visited him there at his invitation. He passed away in 1980 and his obituary was published in the New York Times. A bit of information not in the obituary is a story that was told at the Hotel School in the 1950s. It may or may not be true, but plausible.
In 1954 the Statler Hotel chain was acquired by Hilton for $111 million, the largest real estate transaction in the world at that time. A quick AI calculation places it at $1.2 billion today. Alice Statler, the widow of EM Statler, had a residence at the Waldorf Astoria Towers in New York City, where Joe Binns was the GM as well as a VP of Hilton Hotels. A few other hotel chains and investors wanted the Statler Hotels, but Joe Binns had direct access to Mrs. Statler, the major stockholder, and Hilton won. That was the backstory at the Hotel School.
~Rocco Angelo ’58
