Today, July 31, 2012, marks the closing of The Ritz for major renovations. Â The grand hotel closed in stages, starting with the Escoffier cooking school and the Hemingway Bar. Â The Ritz has been home to some of the most world-famous cultural icons in history, including Marcel Proust, Coco Chanel, and Ernest Hemingway, who is rumored to have declared that he liberated the Ritz at the end of WWII. Â Though Hemingway did not, in fact, liberate the Ritz, he will always be remembered for his patronage of the famous bar that now bears his name and displays his memorabilia.
A portrait and bust of Ernest Hemingway, one of the bar’s most famous clients.
Colin Field, the bartender who put the Hemingway Bar on the map.