When the U.S. Army suddenly decided to sell Chicago's huge Stevens Hotel last June (TIME, June 28), the joke was on the Army. Reasons: 1) only six months before, the Army had shelled out $6,000,000 to buy the Stevens for an Air Forces training school; 2) only three months before, it had auctioned off some $2,000,000 worth of irreplaceable furnishings for less than $500,000 in cash.
Stripped of much of its finery, the Stevens looked like even more of a white elephant than it had been in the plush-furnished days when its private owners could earn nothing on their $28,000,000...
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