New Year's Eve Festivities in the Hotels to Cost $500,000

Proprietors Have Made Elaborate Preparations for Accommodation of the Merry Throngs Which Will Greet Birth of 1909.

RESERVATIONS FAR EXCEED THOSE OF 1908

Reports made last night by proprietors and managers of hotels and restaurants in this city indicate that the New Year’s Eve crowd in the hotels and restaurants to-night will be larger than the throng that was present a year ago. Almost every hotel and restaurant in the city has made elaborate preparations for the entertainment of the merrymakers.

From estimates furnished by proprietors and managers of hotels and restaurants last night the merrymakers who will fill those establishments to-night will spend more than half a million dollars in welcoming the advent of 1909. In several hotels and restaurants champagne will be the only drink served, and expenditures much greater than those of last New Year’s Eve are expected.

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AT THE WALDORF-ASTORIA.

At the Waldorf-Astoria twenty-seven hundred reservations of places have been made. The demand for places has been so great that tables will be placed in the foyer and the reception hall on the Thirty-fourth street side of the hotel. Women will be admitted to the men’s café. Buglers will signal the approach of midnight and on the hour eight orchestras and a corps of professional singers will lead the merrymakers in singing “The Star Spangled Banner.”

Among those who have reserved places at the Waldorf-Astoria are ... Mr. Nikola Tesla, ...