Paper fragment from the Hôtel de Luxembourg, Rue Breydel, 35, Anvers. J.Robert-Thill, Proprietaire.
The Luxembourg Hotel, located on Rue Breydel in Antwerp, Belgium, provided lodging for emigrants from Luxembourg headed to the United States on the Red Star Line of steamships. The Red Star Line provided shipping services for passengers and freight between Antwerp and New York and Philadelphia beginning in 1873 and ending in 1934. The five-story Hotel, operated in 1883 by Mathieu Thill, and after 1894, by J. Robert-Thill, was an important way-station on the long trip from Luxembourg to the United States, offering not only food and shelter for Luxembourgians, but also transportation from the train station and to the Antwerp harbor.
Grace Bello, “Museum in Antwerp Recalls the Ships that Brought Einstein and Irving Berlin to America,” Tablet, 27 November 2013. Online edition; Francois Besch, “Mit der ‘Red Star Line’ uber Antwerpen in die USA,” Tageblatt, 12 June 2007, pp.32-33. Online edition.