After performing at the Glens Falls Civic Center in the early 1980s, Bob Hope strolled into the Queensbury  Hotel without an entourage, just like any other hotel guest. More than 300 fans were waiting in the hotel lobby for a chance to see him, but he waded through the crowd alone, politely saying "hello, good-bye" to everyone he passed -- never breaking his stride to the elevator, former hotel manager Leo Turley recalled last month. But when Bob Dylan stayed at the Queensbury several years later, a force of about a dozen handlers and bodyguards moved into the hotel to fend off any fans seeking a piece of their boss. Because of security concerns, Dylan even obtained special permission from the city to drive the wrong way down Ridge Street (it was one-way northbound at the time) to get from the hotel to the Civic Center, Turley said. Ironically, though, not one fan showed up at the hotel, so the heavy security wound up seeming somewhat comical -- even to Dylan himself, Turley said. When the legendary folk singer realized his security detail might be a bit more than was necessary, he smirked to Turley on his way to the concert, as if to say "whoops," Turley said. "Not one single person showed up to bother him," Turley said between hearty laughs. "He looked at me and laughed at himself." Dylan and Hope are just two among a long line of celebrities who have stayed at the Queensbury since the stately hotel first opened its doors in 1926. If the hotel's walls could talk, they would tell of visits by entertainers as diverse as Louis Armstrong, Ozzy Osborne, Kenny Rogers, Dan Aykroyd, Billy Joel and the rock bands Phish and ZZ Top. They'd also tell of visits by sports stars like Kenny Anderson, Joe Frazier and Mike Tyson -- and by powerful statesmen and politicians from Robert F. Kennedy and Nelson A. Rockefeller to George E. Pataki and, before he turned from acting to politics, Ronald Reagan. And they'd tell of at least one scheming confidence man who used the hotel as his home for several months while posing as an heir to the Vanderbilt fortune. Witness to Change The landmark hotel, built in the 1920s as an expression of civic pride by a group of the city's top business leaders, has mirrored the changing civic and business life of Glens Falls itself during the past seven decades. Changes in the entertainment industry have also been reflected at the Queensbury.  Years ago, the hotel's ballroom was the site of regular performances by big band stars, including Benny Goodman and Guy Lombardo, who once thrilled area residents at the annual policemen's ball. Later, after construction of the Glens Falls Civic Center in the 1970s, the Queensbury mainly served just as the lodging place for visiting stars. But today, with most big-name entertainment acts shunning the Civic Center in favor of larger venues like the Pepsi Arena in Albany, the only musical acts that typically visit the Queensbury are local disc jockeys and rock 'n' roll bands performing at wedding receptions in the hotel. That leads some longtime area residents to believe that the hotel has lost some of its elite luster.  "It was more popular (years ago) than it is now," said Don A. Metivier, a local author and historian who is also a former Post-Star reporter. "It was the place in Glens Falls at one time." But even people like Metivier acknowledge that the hotel remains a centerpiece of the city, a sort of crown jewel of downtown Glens Falls.  It is the Queensbury, after all, that remains the hotel of choice for corporate visitors and traveling sports teams that play at the Civic Center. Area civic organizations choose the hotel for their weekly luncheons, and politicians use it for their election night celebrations. And for anyone visiting Glens Falls on business or pleasure, the hotel remains a unique alternative to the chain motels clustered near the area's Northway exits.  "I've known people who moved here after staying a night at the Queensbury," Mayor Robert A. Regan said last week. "They looked out the window at City Park and said, `What a great place to live.'"  Glimpses of Glamor Among the many celebrities who spent a night or two at the Queensbury over the years, most of those who stick out in the memory of the hotel's current and former staff are the ones who didn't put on airs because of their fame. James Askew, a doorman at the hotel from 1957-68, said of all the people he opened doors and carried bags for during those years, Louis Armstrong provided the most memorable encounter. "I'll never forget him," said Askew, now 78. "I put his bags in his car and started walking away. He said, 'Wait a minute daddy-o, let me lay some bread on ya.' "I didn't have any problem stopping," he added. Turley, the hotel's manager from 1979-90, told how the singer Anne Murray once offered an impromptu performance of Happy Birthday for an elderly woman who happened to be having a birthday dinner at a nearby table in the hotel's restaurant. But he remembers the boxer Mike Tyson as the hotel guest who most strongly defied the stereotype of the demanding celebrity. "He was the epitome of good manners and quiet," Turley said. "The help just loved him. We all said he'll be the most popular champion in the history."  For Heinz Schefold, the hotel's director of operations, Tyson, Bob Hope, and Kenny Rogers are the visitors that left the biggest impression. "I met two Bob Hopes: the one without makeup, who looked 100 years old; and the one with makeup, who looked about 60," Schefold said. "They were two totally different people." When he took Hope's bags to his car on one occasion, he said Hope started to tip him, but he refused the tip -- in part because he was being watched by a crowd of Hope's fans. "He said to me, 'What, are you independently wealthy?'" Schefold said.  Schefold said Kenny Rogers was the nicest celebrity he's ever dealt with, even though he stayed at the hotel when he was at the peak of his career.  "He even played football in the park," Schefold said. But it was his encounter with Tyson that left the strongest visual image. Schefold said he can still picture the musclebound boxer sitting in the hotel jacuzzi. Schefold approached to see if Tyson wanted anything.  "He wanted a carafe of orange juice," Schefold said.  "I said, `no problem.'" The Impostor Perhaps the most notorious guest ever to stay the Queensbury wasn't a celebrity -- at least not until after he checked out. The guest identified himself as Paul S. Vanderbilt and gave a home address on Park Avenue in New York City, but police later said identified him as Brian M. McDevitt, a 20-year-old from the Boston area. In 1980, McDevitt stayed at the Queensbury on and off for several months, playing the role of a wealthy heir, betting on the horses in Saratoga Springs and spending lavishly throughout the area. "The staff said he was a very, very good tipper," said Metivier, who later wrote extensively about McDevitt's case. The case broke on Dec. 22, 1980, when police said McDevitt teamed up with a mild-mannered assistant manager at the hotel to hijack a Federal Express truck and attempt a $50 million heist of art at The Hyde Collection museum in Glens Falls. In a caper fit for a Tom Clancy novel, the hotel employee -- armed with a pellet gun and handcuffs -- used ether to knock out the woman driver of a Federal Express truck in South Glens Falls, said South Glens Falls Police Chief Kevin Judd, then a sergeant who investigated the case and now says it was easily the most interesting he has ever probed. The employee bound the driver and quickly headed for the Hyde, where McDevitt awaited. Unfortunately for the scheming duo, holiday traffic was unusually heavy, and it took a lot longer than expected to drive the truck from South Glens Falls to the museum. By the time the truck arrived, it was eight minutes too late. The museum had closed for the day. The two men then released the driver and the van, but McDevitt and his accomplice both were arrested and charged with kidnapping the next day. Both ended up serving time in the Saratoga County Jail. A report on the attempted heist was later aired on the television news show "60 Minutes" in 1992. Metivier said he was told by FBI officials that the art theft, if successful, would have been one the biggest of all time. After McDevitt was arrested, police said the money for his lavish stay at the Queensbury had come from a $100,000 theft from a safety deposit box at a Boston bank. Francis X. O'Keefe, who was then, as now, the Glens Falls city treasurer, said he remembers encountering McDevitt after stopping to check out a Rolls-Royce in the Queensbury Hotel's parking lot. O'Keefe said he made the mistake of touching a bronze nameplate on the car. Within seconds, he said, McDevitt sprang out of the hotel, yelling at him.  "He ripped me up one side and down the other," O'Keefe said. "I wiped it (the nameplate) off with my handkerchief. True story." But Turley said most people around town suspected McDevitt was an impostor, in part because he paid for everything in cash -- and because he overtipped. "I wouldn't let him run up a bill," Turley said. "I knew he was a phony. We didn't know if he was a counterfeiter or what, but we new he was a phony. What Vanderbilt doesn't have a credit card?"  The Kennedy Promise Although numerous New York governors and congressmen have spoken at the hotel over the years, it is Robert F. Kennedy's visit to the Queensbury -- on the day after he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1964 -- that still remains linked in many people's memories to perhaps the most electrifying local political event of recent decades. On Sept. 10, 1964, Kennedy was scheduled to speak in City Park as part of an upstate campaign tour. Metivier, who was covering the event for The Post-Star, said Kennedy was supposed to appear about 9 p.m. But the candidate was running late -- hours late. Kennedy's staff asked city leaders whether he should even bother to come, because it would be nearly 1 a.m. before he'd arrive in the city. The city leaders said yes.   As Kennedy rode into the city from the Warren County Airport, thousands of people lined Dix Avenue, many in pajamas. Thousands more were waiting in the park, Metivier recalled. "He told the crowd that he'd never seen anything like that anywhere in the world, and he vowed that he would return to the city after the election, win or lose," Metivier said. "That Wednesday, the day after the election, he showed up for a luncheon at the Queensbury Hotel. He kept his promise." At the luncheon, both Kennedy and his wife, Ethel, who was expecting the couple's ninth child, pledged to work hard for the North Country and for Glens Falls in particular, according to Post-Star reports at the time. "Glens Falls brought hope and promise to Bobby. He will do the same for Glens Falls," Ethel Kennedy told the crowd. The senator-elect later joked about his crushing defeat of Republican Kenneth Keating in Glens Falls, despite his overall loss in Republican-dominated Warren and Washington counties. He promised to return to the city again, and he did so in 1966 and 1967. Building a Landmark The notion of building a centerpiece hotel in the city was proposed as early as 1916 by the Glens Falls Chamber of Commerce. But it wasn't until a group of wealthy businessmen got behind the idea that the project took off. In an unprecedented show of business and civic teamwork that likely couldn't be duplicated today, 100 businessmen met at the former Glens Falls Insurance Co. offices in 1924 and voted to raise $600,000 to get the hotel project off the ground, according to Post-Star reports at the time. Enthusiasm by city residents and businessmen allowed $440,000, a substantial sum at the time, to be raised for the project in only eight days. A total of $474,000 was raised within a month, and it was decided that the remainder of the estimated $750,000 needed to build and equip the hotel would be borrowed.  Among the major early contributors were the Glens Falls Insurance Co. and Finch, Pruyn & Co., which each chipped in $50,000. In April 1924, the local businessmen formed the Glens Falls Hotel Corp., which would own the hotel for 32 years. In the spirit of teamwork and thriftiness, officers of the hotel corporation chose to raise money for the project themselves, rather than hiring professional consultants as would commonly be done today. This saved $35,000, according to newspaper reports at the time. In addition, a committee overseeing the project, led by businessmen George Bayle Sr. and Frank M. Smally, didn't charge the corporation for time, mileage or travel expenses, The Post-Star reported. Ground was broken on June 9, 1924 and progressed steadily until the hotel was finally ready to open its doors in May 1926. By then, the cost was $150,000 more than anticipated, because 26 rooms were added, and because the businessmen backing the project decided to furnish every room, rather than leaving 25 of the 151 rooms unfurnished as initially had been planned. Today, the hotel's general manager, keeps a momento on the bookcase as a reminder of the men who actually built the elegant hotel. The momento is a tin of Union Leader tobacco, with the patriotic image of Uncle Sam on the front, that was fished out of a cement block when the hotel was undergoing one of several renovations in recent years. When the workers doing the renovations opened the can, they found a faded piece of paper with the date July 3, 1925 inscribed in pencil and two names -- James Sullivan of Hudson Falls and someone named Murphy, whose first name isn't legible, from White Creek. --  Reprinted from the December 6, 1998 issue of the Post-Star, the home      newspaper of the Adirondacks.  Written by David Blow