Travellers' Checks | When piped music and chicken in a basket were new in a Malaysian hotel, along with Australian belly dancers: the Federal turns 60
The floor show has gone but the revolving restaurant still turns at what was ‘Malaysia’s first international class hotel’, the Federal Kuala Lumpur, which celebrates 60 years in business with a very affordable anniversary package
The Federal Kuala Lumpur, which still proudly promotes itself as “truly Malaysia’s first international-class hotel”, is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. It opened in August 1957, in the capital’s lively Bukit Bintang district, just in time to host foreign dignitaries attending the country’s independence celebrations.
Five years later, the Federal appeared in a lengthy Life magazine pictorial, looking at “the greatest [global] outcropping of new hotels in history”. The Federal, as the July 13, 1962 issue told potential American tourists, “boasts such western refinements as music piped to every room, but its character is best reflected in its Mandarin Palace restaurant, where customers can watch an Australian belly dancer gyrating to Latin music”.
The other 18 hotels featured include one that no longer exists – Hong Kong’s Ambassador Hotel (“one of a dozen new hotels that are springing up to house the influx of a quarter-million tourists a year”) – and two that have sadly long lain in ruins: the spectacular Ducor Palace Hotel, in the Liberian capital, Monrovia; and the luxurious but short-lived Hotel Ponce Intercontinental, in Puerto Rico.
In 1968, the Federal added a revolving restaurant to the top of its newly built tower wing. It still turns, offering a presumably little changed menu proffering the likes of caesar salad, French onion soup and chicken in a basket. Even the Mandarin Palace is still going strong, though regrettably without the cosmopolitan 1960s floor show.
Should you care to indulge in an affordably priced slice of Malaysian nostalgia before the end of this year, the Federal 60th Anniversary Package includes one night’s accommodation in the Merdeka (Independence) Wing from 260 ringgit (US$60) per night, with a60-ringgit food and beverage voucher, and an anniversary cocktail at The Verandah.