The song “Deusdéti”, by the satirical group Lingua de Trapo, from São Paulo, spoke of the existential dilemma of the caipirão communist militant who was dating a girl from the capital. The chorus went like this: “I couldn’t (I couldn’t) / I couldn’t (I couldn’t (I couldn’t) / I couldn’t go to dinner with you at Maquçude”.
The year was 1985, and there was nothing more luxurious in São Paulo than the Maksoud Plaza hotel. There the international celebrities stayed. There was even a petit show by Frank Sinatra.
One would never imagine the decay that dragged on with cruel and excruciating slowness, until the hotel’s total closure, announced today (7/12/2021).
In my childhood and adolescence, Maksoud was a dream tour that I never realized. Not the way I wanted it.
The kid I was wanted, more than anything, to travel to the top of the Maksoud building in the panoramic elevator that leads to the gigantic free space in the entrance hall.
But my parents thought I was too bratty to eat smörgåsbord, the Scandinavian feast, at Vikings restaurant — the city’s first to specialize in Nordic cuisine. I would obviously hate herring, but what mattered was the elevator.
In 1985, the year of “Deusdéti”, my middle sister (older than me) took me to a concert by guitarist Buddy Guy at the same 150 Night Club where Sinatra had sung. I was 15 years old, I thought I could be a bluesman one day, and I was blown away. But the elevator didn’t roll.
At about the same time, it was a tradition for silly high school sophomores to have breakfast at the Maksoud after the graduation party.
I don’t remember why, but my colleagues decided instead to go to Mofarrej (now part of the Tivoli network), another luxury hotel in the Avenida Paulista region.
I didn’t ride the elevator until many years later, when I was already an adult with some height anxiety. I used to work at Editora Abril’s VIP magazine, and we were doing a fashion and gastronomy shoot at the hotel – which already seemed to die in 2011.
The magazine was 30 years old, and Maksoud symbolized what was most glamorous at the time the VIP began to circulate. There were models in retro clothes, in a setting that included old-fashioned food. Shrimp cocktail, that sort of thing.
Most of the rehearsal was held at the Batidas & Petiscos bar, a very crumbling space on the ground floor (which would later gain new life when it became Frank and served great cocktails).
In search of an alternative setting, we asked to see a vacant apartment. There were many vacant apartments.
The kid inside me woke up and asked for the room to be on the top of the 22 floors. I watched the ground move away from my feet without the emotion I would feel at 10 years old.
In the suite, another fuén. Old furniture – to call it “old” would be too flattering – threadbare carpet, zero charm.
This was a dying hotel. A sad place. Maksoud was kind of late, he should have died with more dignity. He didn’t deserve to be slowly murdered for the incompetence of those who should have taken care of him.
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