Up In the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell is a collection of articles that Mitchell wrote for The New Yorker over a period of time spanning from the early 1930s to the mid-1960s. They were originally collected and published in 4 separate books, long out of print. McSorley's Wonderful Saloon profiles characters Mitchell met in and around the Bowery in his early days in New York City. These include saloon-owners, a self-described Gypsy king, a colorful street preacher, the "Don't Swear Man", a freak show bearded lady, and many others, as well as several works of fiction. Old Mr. Flood describes one elderly man living around the Fulton Fish Market. The Bottom of the Harbor is about the fish market, and the fishermen -- the bay men and the river men -- who kept it supplied. The book ends with Joe Gould's Secret, a follow-up to one of Mitchell's earlier profiles (which my brother informs me was made into a movie a few years ago.)
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It paints a picture of a New York city that is mostly long gone, a fact that is echoed in places all around the country and is to be mourned. It was dense reading, like a well-aged fruitcake. I read with a dictionary close at hand to look up unknown words, which is always fun.
If you enjoy the kind of books that explore one subject in depth -- in the vein of John McPhee or Mark Kurlansky -- check out Up In the Old Hotel. It was a treat.
2 comments:
Well, you know I love this book, Suzy, and I always took "Joe Gould's Secret" as a metaphor for the writer's block that essentially ended Mitchell's tenure as a writer. It didn't, as I understand it, end his tenure at The New Yorker: He continued to keep an office there and show up for work. He just never produced another article for the magazine.
Anyway, since I thought of Joe Gould as a metaphor (the whole "history of our time" business what what convinced me that he was Joe Mitchell's alter ego), I just assume this was Mitchell's sly way of explaining the ennui that prevented him from writing again.
After seeing the film of "Joe Gould's Secret (which is worth seeing--I like Stanley Tucci) I learned, in fact, that Gould was a real person, a fixture around Greenwich Village (Ross Wetzseon, in his history of the Village, "Republic of Dreams" devotes an entire chapter to Gould), and published some articles, at least, in The Dial, a literary and arts periodical that folded, I think, in the late 1920s.
One one of the songs on Steve Earle's album "Washington Square Serenade" mentions seeing "the ghost of Joe Mitchell" on the subway.
I'm really glad you liked this book. It was a significant factor in my relocating here, and I can still find some of the characters and establishments of the type he mentions in the book. New York City has more character than just about anywhere in the country I can think of. But if corporate America has its way, Joe Mitchell's world will disappear...and what a shame that will be.
Mark
Thanks, Mark. Yes, I remember that line from the song "Pale Male". Didn't connect it.
I want to talk about this more with you when you're here.
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