in the center of what was once a fashionable section of new york, but is now a badly deteriorated tenement region, stands a hotel which to me is one of the curiosities of new york. it is really not a hotel at all, in one sense, and yet in another it is, a hybrid or cross between a hotel and a charity, one of those odd philanthropies of the early years following nineteen hundred, which were supposed to bridge with some form of relief the immense gap that existed between the rich and the poor; a gap that was not supposed to exist in a republic devoted to human brotherhood and the equality of man.

let that be as it will. exteriorly at least it is really a handsome affair, nine stories in height, with walls of cream-colored brick and gray stone trimmings, and a large, overhanging roof of dark-red curved tiles which suggests florence and the south. set apart in an open space it would be admirable. it is not, however, as its appearance would indicate, a hotel of any distinction of clientele, for it was built for an entirely different purpose. and, despite the aim and the dreams of those who sought to reach those who might be only temporarily embarrassed, rather than whose who were permanently so, and who might use this as a wayplace on their progress upward rather than on their way downward, still it is more the latter who frequent it most. it is really a rendezvous for those who are “down and out.”

174 about the time that it was built, or a little after, i myself was in a bad way. it was not exactly that i was financially helpless or that i could not have come by relief in one and another form, if my pride would have let me, as that my pride and a certain psyche which, like a fever or a passion, must take its course, would not permit me to do successfully any of the things that normally i could and would have done. i was nervous, really very sick mentally, and very depressed. life to me wore a somber and at most times a forbidding air, as though, indeed, there were furies between me and the way i would go. yet, return i would not. and courage not lacking, a certain grim stubbornness that would not permit me to retreat nor yet to ask for help, at last for a brief period i took refuge here, as might one beset by a raging gale at sea take refuge in some seemingly quiet harbor, any port indeed, in order to forfend against utter annihilation.

a wayplace of the fallen

and a strange, sad harbor i found it to be indeed, a nondescript and fantastic affair, sheltering a nondescript and quite fantastic throng. the thin-bodied and gray-bearded old men loitering out their last days here, and yet with a certain something about them that suggested courage or defiance, or at least a vague and errant will to live. the lean and down-at-heels and erratic-looking young men, with queer, restless, nervous eyes, and queer, restless, deceptive and nervous manners. and the chronic ne’er-do-wells, and bums even, pan-handlers, street fiddle and horn players, street singers, street cripples and beggars of one kind and another. some of them i had even encountered in the streets in175 my more prosperous hours and had given them dimes, and here i encountered them again. they were all so poor, if not physically or materially at least spiritually, or so nearly all, as to make contact with them disconcerting, if not offensive. for they walked, the most of them, with an air of rundown, hopeless inadequacy that was really disturbing to look upon. all of them were garbed in clothing which was not good and yet which at all times could not be said to be absolutely ragged. rather, in many cases it was more of an intermediate character, such as you might expect to find on a person who was out of a job but who was still struggling to keep up appearances.

you would find, for instance, those whose suits were in a fair state of preservation but whose shoes were worn or torn. again, there were those whose hats and shoes were good but whose trousers were worn and frayed. still others would show a good pair of trousers or a moderately satisfactory coat, but such a gleam of wretched linen or so poor and faded a tie, that one was compelled to notice it. and the mere sight of it, as they themselves seemed to realize by their furtive efforts at concealment, was sufficient to convict them of want or worse. between these grades and conditions there were so many other little gradations, such as the inadvertently revealed edge of a cotton shirt under a somewhat superior suit, the exposed end of a rag being used for a handkerchief, the shifting edge of a false shirt front, etc., so that by degrees one was moved to either sympathy or laughter, or both.

and the nature of the life here. it was such as to176 preclude any reasonable classification from the point of view, say, of happiness or comfort. for all its exterior pretentiousness and inner spaciousness, it offered nothing really except two immense lounging-rooms or courts about which the various tiers or floors of rooms were built and which rose, uninterrupted, to the immense glass roofs or coverings nine stories above. there were several other large rooms—a reading-room, a smoking-room—equipped with chairs and tables, but which could only be occupied between 9 a.m. and 10 p.m., and which were watched over by as surly and disagreeable a type of orderly or guard as one would find anywhere—such orderlies or guards, for instance, as a prison or an institution of charity might employ. in fact, i never encountered an institution in which a charge was made for service which seemed to me more barren of courtesy, consideration or welcome.

we were all, as i soon found, here on sufferance. during a long day that began between 9 a.m., at which hour the room you occupied had to be vacated for the day, and 5 p.m., when it might be reoccupied once more, and not before, there was nothing to do but walk the streets if one was out of work, as most of these were, or sit in one or another of these same rooms filled with these same nondescripts, who looked and emanated the depression they felt and who were too taciturn or too evasive or shy or despondent to wish to talk to anybody. and in addition, neither these nor yourself were really welcome here. for, if you remained within these lobbies during the hours of nine and five daylight, these underlings surveyed you, if at all, with looks of indifference or177 contempt, as who should say, “haven’t you anything at all to do?” and most of those with whom you were in contact could not help but feel this. it was too obvious to be mistaken.

but to return to the type of person who came here to lodge. where did they all come from? one was compelled to ask oneself. how did it happen that they were so varied as to age, vigor or the lack of it and the like? for not all were old or sick or poorly dressed. some quite the contrary. and yet how did some of them manage to subsist, even with the aid of such a place as this? what was before them? these thoughts, somehow, would intrude themselves whether one would or no. for some of them were so utterly hopeless looking. and others (i told myself) were the natural idlers of the world, or what was left of them, men too feeble, too vagrom in thought, or too indifferent to make an earnest effort in any direction. at least there was the possibility of many such being here. again, there were those of better mood and substance, like myself, say, who were here because of stress, and who were temporarily driven to this form of economy, wretched as it was. others were obviously criminals or drug fiends, or those suffering from some incurable or wasting disease, who probably had little money and no strength, or very little, and who were seeking to hide themselves away here, to rest and content themselves as obscurely and as cheaply as possible. (the maximum charges for a room and a free bath in the public bathroom, the same including towels and soap, ranged from twenty-five to forty cents a day. a meal in the hotel dining-room, such178 as it was, was fifteen cents. i ate several there.) pick-pockets and thugs from other cities drifted in here, and it was not difficult to pick out an occasional detective studying those who chose to stay here. for the rest, they were of the flotsam and jetsam of all metropolitan life—the old, the young, the middle-aged, the former and the latter having in the main passed the period of success without achieving anything, the others waiting and drifting, perhaps until they should come upon something better. some of them looked to me to be men who had put up a good fight, but in vain. life had worsted them. others looked as though they had not put up any fight at all.

and, again, the nature of the rooms here offered (one of which i was compelled to accept), the air or illusion of cells in an institution or prison that characterized them! they were really not rooms at all, as i found, but cells partitioned or arranged in such a way as to provide the largest amount of renting space and personal supervision and espionage to the founder and manager but only a bare bed to the guest. as i have said, they were all arranged either about an inner court or the exterior walls, so as to have the advantage of interior or exterior lighting, quite as all hotels and prisons are arranged. but the size of them and the amazingly small windows through which one looked, either into one or other of these courts or onto the streets outside! they were not more than five feet in width by eight in length, and contained each a small iron bed, a single chair, and a very small closet or wardrobe where some clothing might be installed, but so179 little that it could hardly be called a convenience.

and, again, the walls were really not walls at all, but marble partitions set upon iron legs or jacks two feet from the floor and reaching to within three feet of the ceiling, which permitted the observation of one’s neighbor’s legs from below, if you wished to observe those conveniences, or of studying his entire chamber if you chose to climb upon your bed and look over the top. these open spaces were of course protected by iron screens, which prevented any one entering save through the door.

it is obvious that any such arrangement would preclude any sense of privacy. when you were in your cell there came to you from all parts of the building the sounds of a general activity—the shuffling of feet, the clearing of throats, the rattling of dominoes in the reading-room below, voices in complaint or conversation, walkings to and fro, the slamming of doors here, there and everywhere, and what not. coupled with this was the fact that the atmosphere of the whole building was permeated with tobacco smoke, and tainted or permeated with breaths in all degrees of strength from that of the drunkard to that of the drug fiend or consumptive. it was as though one were living in a weird dream. you were presumed to be alone, and yet you were not, and yet you were, only there was no sense of privacy, only a sense of being separated and then neglected and irritated.

and the way these noises and this atmosphere continued into the small hours of the morning was maddening. there is something, to begin with, about poverty180 and squalor that is as depressing and destructive as a gas or a chemic ferment. poverty has color and odor and radiation as strong as any gas or ferment. it speaks. it mourns, and these radiations are destructive. hence the instinctive impulse to flee not only disease but poverty.

at ten o’clock all lights in the lobbies and halls were supposed to be put out, and they were put out. there being none in the rooms, all was dark. before this you would hear the shuffling of this throng bedward, and the piling of chairs on tables in the lobbies for the night in order that the orderlies of the hotel might sweep afterwards. there followed a general opening and shutting of doors and the sound made by individuals here and there stirring among their effects in the dark or straightening their beds. finally, during the small hours of the night, when peace was supposed to reign, you would hear, whether you wished to or not, your neighbor and your neighbor’s neighbor, even to the extent of aisles and floors distant, snoring and coughing or complaining. there were raucous demands from the irritated to “cut it out” or “turn over,” and from others return remarks as “go to hell. who do you think you are!”—retorts, sometimes brutal, sometimes merely irritable, which, however, kept the night vocal and one awake.

when, however, all these little difficulties had been finally ironed out and the last man had either quit grumbling or decided to dispose of his thoughts in a less audible way, there came an hour in which nature seemed truly able, even here, to “knit up the raveled sleeve of181 care.” the noisy had now become silent, the nervous peaceful. throughout the whole establishment an audible, rhythmic, synchronic breathing was now apparent. you felt as though some great chemic or psychic force were at work in the world, as though by some strange hocus-pocus of chemistry or physics, life was still capable of solving its difficulties, even though you were not, and as though these misfits of soul and body were still breathing in unison with something, as though silence and shadow were parts of some shrewd, huge plan to soothe the minds of the weary and to bring final order out of chaos.

in the morning, however, one awoke once more (at least i did) to a still more painful realization of what it means to be very poor. there were no conveniences, as i found, at least none which were private. your bath was a public one, a shower only, one; of a series of spouting discs in the basement, where you were compelled to foregather with others, taking your clothes with you—for unless you arose early you could not return to your room. the towels, fortunately, were separate, except for some roll-towels that served at washstands. the general toilet was either a long trough or a series of exposed closets, doorless segments extending along one wall. the shaving-room consisted of the mirrors above the washstands, nothing separate. over all were the guards loitering to see that nothing was misused.

there is no question as to the necessity of such rigid, almost prison-like control, perhaps, but the general effect of it on one—or on me, let me say—was coarse and bitter.

182 “blime me” (the attendants were for some curious reason mostly english), “you’d think there was no other time but nine for ’im to come start shaving. i say, you can’t do that. we’re closing ’ere now. cut it out.”

this to a shabby soul with a three days’ growth of beard who has evidently not reached the stage where he understands the regulations of the institution.

“you’ll ’ave to quit splattering water ’ereabouts, i’m telling you. this ain’t no bawth. if you want to do that, go in the basement.”

this to one who was not as careful about his shaving as he might be.

“you’ll ’ave to be moving out o’ ’ere now.”

this to one who had fixed himself comfortably in the lobby and who might be in the way of some orderly who wanted to sweep or sprinkle a little sawdust. on every hand, at every time, as i noticed, it was the orderly or the hired servant, not the guest, who was the important and superior person. and it seemed to me, after a three days’ study of it, that they were really looking for flaws and slight mistakes on the part of guests in order that they might show their authority and proclaim to the world their strength. it was discouraging.

the saddest part of it was that this place, with all its drawbacks, was still beyond the purse of many. some, as anyone could see, only came here between the hours of ten in the morning and ten at night, the hours when lounging in these lobbies was permitted, to loaf and keep warm. they could not afford one of these palatial rooms but must only loaf here by day. it was at least warm and bright, and so, up to ten o’clock at night, not183 unsatisfactory. but having no room to go to at ten at night, they must make their way out. and this necessity, exposing them for what they were, bench-warmers, soon made them known to the guards or orderlies, who could be seen eyeing them, sometimes speaking to them, suggesting that they come no more, that they “cut it out.” they were bums, benchers, really below the level of those who could afford to stop here, and so beneath that level of contempt which was regularly meted out to those who could stop here. i myself have seen them sidling or slipping out at 9:30 or 9:45, and with what an air—like that of a dog that is in danger of a booting. i have also seen a man at closing time count the remaining money in his possession, calculate a moment, and then rise and slip out into the night. men such as these are not absolutely worthless, but they have reached the lowest rung of the ladder, are going down, not up, and beyond them is the bowery, the hospital, and the river—the last, i think, the most merciful of all.