Besides presenting characters and places with rich and convincing detail, Joseph Mitchell chronicles a passing world, evoking nostalgia for things passing. Mitchell trains his eye upon various characters, some rattled and others haunted by the past, highlighting the immense changes that were occurring around the turn of the century. Sorting the history of the early 20th century emergence of modern industry and state, an era that has seen un-paralleled change, may not be possible, but Mitchell offers glimpses here and there into the effect these changes had on society: Beefsteak rituals changing with the inclusion of women; out-of-work gypsies suffering from the advent of the auto; local bars tenaciously hanging on to tradition; cut off rooms in an old Hotels guarding shabby and dusty clues to a past not long gone. Training his eye on local color, rather than heads of state and industry, Mitchell reveals the dark side of our modern world while revealing the keen spirit of the human survivors of that world.
The title piece, “Up in the Old Hotel,” lends its name as the title of this collection and appropriately rests near the middle of the book. Certainly the image of an abandoned and barely accessible hotel is an apt image to convey the speed at which change occurs in the modern world. Today, the rate of change appears more rapid than ever before with planned obsolescence and continual innovation. Reading Mitchell points our attention at the birth of our modern culture, the “big bang” that saw the rapid expansion we experience today. Many modern cities are built upon layers of ruins from previous cultures. Mitchell shows us the near ghost like presence of the past in a city that has changed so quickly, that the “past” exists along with the present.
Of course, being as they sat in close proximity to the past, the average person might not have been as fascinated with it as we are today, just as a ten year old may spend less time thinking about his early years than would an eighty year old. Louis Morino, owner of the Hotel, is curious about the old, abandoned hotel above his restaurant, but his attempts to explore it have been thwarted by an old hand-pulled elevator on its last legs. Both author and reader, however, are itching to get a peek at the upper rooms, and finally the author cajoles Mitchell into venturing up to take a look. While some random junk and bible scriptures are observed in short order, Morino, primarily concerned with a paper record that would link the place to the past, is satisfied and so, to the disappointment of the curious Mitchell and his readers, the exploration stops.
And just as the Old Hotel promises much but keeps even more in the dark, Joe Gould, a sort of distorted fun house reflection of the Joseph Mitchell, offers a comprehensive history of his times but ultimately provides only incomplete glimpses of the life of New York. In “Professor Seagull,” the first essay about Gould, we hear of a compendium of notebooks he claims to have stashed away; later we find they don’t actually exist. While intelligent, eccentric malcontents must surely supersede the modern world, Joe Gould’s crazy dances and manic rants hint at the fast pace and overwhelming size of the modern city, New York. Simply by referring to recording the various conversations and important ideas that he’s overheard, Mitchell is able to paint a picture in our minds of a vast, labyrinth-like world. Consider all those people from all over the world in the presence of, in many canes, the first time, ideas and philosophies from all over the globe and through out time. New York is built up of waves of immigrants finding a mish mash of cultures and ideas, grueling factory work, and new kinds of art and entertainment. It’s a cruel irony that pain and hardship often contributes to great art, such as blues and jazz. Joe Gould’s entertaining persona doesn’t obscure his sad and somewhat demented existence wandering around always on his last dime, entertaining socialites for crumbs.
Like Joe Gould, gypsies are often viewed as social pariahs and less than the average person. Like Joe Gould and many of Mitchell’s characters, gypsies are reeling under the pressures brought on by the modern world. In the modern world, documents must prove ones birthplace, but gypsies were often born on road, going from place to place, and documentation wasn’t necessary. Johnny, the “King of the Gypsies” in the piece of the same name, explains how the advent of the automobile destroys his people’s nomadic way of life and severely impairs their ability to make a living. Johnny is one of a series of Mitchell’s disenfranchised characters who, suffering in the face of modern living, prefer older times and rave about the disparities of modern life. At the end of this piece, Johnny speaks of looking forward to the “blow-up” of the modern world and explains how the crazies in the insane asylums could do a better job of running the world than the current politicians.
Along with characters who mourn those things passing are the ones who attempt to hang on to the past. After a life of toil, some wish to rest in a familiar setting as they assuage their aches with beer. And with a world growing at an astronomical pace, the longing to keep things simple and nostalgia for simplicity is easily understood. While some people undoubtedly embrace change, others, the characters Mitchell prefers to observe, hung on. One striking example of someone hanging on to the past is featured in the piece that opens the book: “The Little House at Home”. In it, Mitchell describes the atmosphere at McSorley’s, which is so rich that one feels as if one is sitting in the bar. The characters in the bar live a hard life, even the bar is, to this reader, a relatively stark place, with straight back wood benches and scant room. On the other hand, the sense of belonging and permanence the bar maintain is warm, as exemplified by the actual warmth generated by the stove in winter. In a world rife with change, something about a place that stays steady in appealing. And certainly after a life of toil, the people who spend their (final) days at McSorley’s enjoy well earned drinks and the respite of a dark and easy place to feel at home.
As we move through Mitchell’s collection of writing in “Up from the Old Hotel,” we move from quaint and nostalgic types tending to tradition in a present of which they disapprove to the eccentric and to the disenfranchised and disgruntled people who have lost something substantial to the passing of time partly personal, but also distinctly cultural. These critics speak personally, and yet they also speak to cultural and societal trends of questionable merit and potential peril.
Of the later category are characters found in “Mr. Hunter’s Grave” and “The Bottom of the Bay.” Mr. Hunter, a knowledgeable expert on local plants, people, and history, speaks about how society has gone wrong. Hunter is an apt survivor of hard times. One of the more touching moments in this book occurs when we hear how he lost his son to alcoholism, long before it was commonly thought to be a disease, and he pulls out the ribbon that he didn’t want to see wear away on his son’s graveyard. It read, “Beloved” son. Perhaps it takes someone who is sad to realize some of the darker aspects of modern society. He speaks about the demise of the garden and notes how people don’t even pick the wild berries any more. Hunter talks about how people are buying everything on credit instead of using cash and let things break down, or even help them break down, so they can go out and buy a new one.
In “The Bottom of the Bay” we learn about the gradual destruction of a local ecosystem and consequent lack of a food supply, the image of bodies floating up in spring punctuating the darker tenor of the piece. It seems that, as Mitchell ages, he notes more and more the darker side of our modern world. Like Mr. Hunter, Mr. Poole, in “The Bottom of the Bay,” notes the recklessness of humanity and destruction of the harbor, saying, near the end of the piece, “…I wonder why people don’t just stand still and throw their heads back and open their mouths and howl…On account of the Goddamned craziness of everything.”
Joseph Mitchell focus on those working class personalities we always hope to see at a party: Men who run bars for the old and lonely; gypsy kings; street prophets; and story telling hangers-on of things past. We all know that kids aren’t as tough as their parents; each generation wonders how the next one will possibly pull it off. Looking around today, after reading “Up in the Old Hotel,” one looks differently at our current concerns: the environment, easy credit and failing economy, disenfranchisement, social isolation, disintegration of close nit community. These are the concerns of the modern world, and they made their appearance early in the twentieth century. While some of these themes may have a longer history, most are fairly specific to our culture and therefore merit attention. Many of the social ills that drove men to excessive food, drink and insanity were born specific to our culture. The sewage that ruined New York Bay gave way to the carbon monoxide that threatens the entire planet. While we smile at the graveyard humor, we also may squirm a bit, for, while we visit the birth of our modern world, we may notice than in the lost livelihoods, the lost traditions, the lost ecosystems and the lost souls, it resembles, a bit too much…an actual graveyard.
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