Up in the Old Hotel

Up in the Old Hotel

4.48 of 5 stars 4.48  ·  rating details  ·  1,150 ratings  ·  163 reviews
Saloon-keepers and street preachers, gypsies and steel-walking Mohawks, a bearded lady and a 93-year-old “seafoodetarian” who believes his specialized diet will keep him alive for another two decades. These are among the people that Joseph Mitchell immortalized in his reportage for The New Yorker and in four books—McSorley's Wonderful Saloon, Old Mr. Flood, The Bottom of t...more
Paperback, 736 pages
Published June 1st 1993 by Vintage (first published 1992)
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The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. SalingerThe Great Gatsby by F. Scott FitzgeraldA Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty  SmithTable 21 by T. Rafael CiminoBreakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
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Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)
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Tom
Sep 24, 2008 Tom rated it 5 of 5 stars
Shelves: essays
One of those rare treasures that just gets better with age. A one-man lesson in the cleanest yet most lyrical non-fiction you're likely to find anywhere. Whenever I need to clear my head and cleanse my soul, I pull out this book and reread any one of dozens of favorite passages. A kind of poetry of the streets -- Whitman would've loved Mitchell, I'm convinced of it!
I'd match "Joe Gould's Secret" with any famous novella in American Literature.
So many favorite lines ...
"Done by aproned, middle-a...more
Kathleen
What is it about me and the old guys these days? I can't seem to get enough of them. Mitchell, a prolific staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, chronicled daily life in hidden corners of New York City in the 1930s and 1940s, from McSorley's Saloon, a men's only bar in the Village, to Gypsy neighborhoods on the outskirts of town. When my brain is abuzz from too much screen time and ringing cell phones, I like nothing more than taking a step back into old time New York City with Joseph Mitch...more
Ensiform
A collection of pieces, mostly factual but with a few fiction stories thrown in, that originally appeared in the New Yorker during the 1940s and ‘50s. Most of these stories focus on the strange and larger than life characters who populated New York in the Depression and afterwards --- eccentric barmen, street preachers, Bohemians, gypsies, fishermen, a bearded lady, a Calypso singer, and more. Mitchell’s beat is the Bowery, the Fulton Fish Market, and the Hudson River. He talks about the poverty...more
Mandy Jo
This week’s headline? Old New York

Why this book? Friend's mom's recommendation

Which book format? Shabby trade paperback

Primary reading environment? Shady park bench

Any preconceived notions? Of a time

Identify most with? Joseph Mitchell himself

Three-word quote? “yellow-haired blonde"

Goes well with? mussels, cheese, onions

I spent three months trying to read this, eschewing all other books, and I can't say my time wouldn’t have been better spent reading something else.

There's a certain brand of jour...more
Jack Silbert
I wanted to read this collection since 1992, when it first came out. Finally, last November, my friend Fiona loaned me her well-worn copy. It had been to Alaska and back with her, and who knows where else. At some point early in the new year, I began to read the book, first reinforcing the cover with clear packing tape.

Fiona, you know me too well. The book was a revelation, one of the best I've ever read. Even if I took my sweet time with it. Its 700+ pages hold 37 of Mitchell's New Yorker essay...more
Diane A Brown
Mitchell, a well known reporter has filled a role in history that will always be remembered and loved by those who lived the life he wrote about.

The people in his stories are unique and have qualities some would find interesting. His writing is very descriptive and he captures countless details not understood or seen by the casual passer-buyer. You can easily place yourself as a fly on the wall soaking in your surroundings.

If you read “Up in the Old Hotel” with literary merit in mind then you w...more
Nycdreamin
An amazingly entertaining collection of stories written by Joseph Mitchell, this book should be required reading for any American Literature class in high schools. Mitchell, in his incredibly descriptive writing style, tells tales of some of the people he met in the 1920's - 1950's in and around the vicinity of NYC. Some of the stories contianed in this volume are longer, more complete versions of stories that appeared in an earlier Mitchell collection, "My Ears Are Bent." To read them again her...more
Cindy Light
Another well worn favorite of mine. Here's a review:


Journalist Joseph Mitchell, whose death in in May 1996 at the age of 87 merited a half-page obituary in the New York Times, pioneered a style of journalism while crafting brilliant magazine pieces for the New Yorker from the 1930s to the early 1960s. Up in the Old Hotel, a collection of his best reporting, is a 700-page joy to read.
Mitchell lovingly chronicled the lives of odd New York characters. In the pages of Up In the Old Hotel, the reader...more
Eric
A disclaimer: I only read about 2/3rd's of this book. It's around 750 pages, but some of the stories were either too antiquated to read or were of a topic too sensitive for me to read (ex. the raising of terrapins for future consumption - couldn't handle that. Although, it did remind me of the magical Terrapin Station!). Otherwise, Mitchell's book is fantastic. He was a reporter for the New Yorker from the 1930's to the 1990's. These stories are all profiles he made of the common man and, specif...more
Josh Hamacher
Joseph Mitchell is best known as a writer for The New Yorker from 1938 until 1996, although he only produced until 1964. This thick volume (over 700 pages) collects all of the stories from four of his books ("McSorley's Wonderful Saloon", "Old Mr. Flood", "The Bottom of the Harbor", and "Joe Gould's Secret") plus a few previously uncollected stories.

I don't think I had ever heard of Joseph Mitchell before I started reading this book. I don't even really remember why I picked it up, as it's not s...more
Jake
Easily the best book about New York that I have ever read. I think if Joseph Mitchell had focused on fiction, instead of reporting, he would have been a match for Hemingway- they share a passion for short, declarative sentences, and for stories about noble, damaged people. And like Hemingway, you sense that despite his huge talent, Mitchell was also damaged and sometimes deeply depressed. Maybe that's why he stopped writing after he published "Joe Gould's Secret"– his sadness just got the better...more
Steve Turtell
This is one of the books I had to ration because I never wanted it to end. Of all the writers who have taken New York City as their subject, none is better than Joseph Mitchell. I once referred to "the Joseph Mitchell tradition" to Fran Lebowitz in conversation and she shot back: "That's not a tradition, that's a talent." Amen to that. One of a kind. I have read some of the essays repeatedly: "Mazie" about the saintly ticket taker in a Bowery movie theater, "The Mohawks in High Steel," and "Up i...more
Frank
I'm going to give this four stars provisionally since I haven't read the whole thing or even the majority of it. I bought this book in order to read the final piece in it, "Joe Gould's Secret," which Janet Malcolm called Joseph Mitchell's masterpiece.

I can see why Malcolm, author of The Journalist and the Murderer, a classic study of the ethical quandaries of the relationship between writer and subject, would be drawn to this piece. It's a fascinating and entertaining account of Mitchell's relat...more
Matt Chic
First things first. Up in the Old Hotel actually contains four books by Joseph Mitchell:

McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon
Old Mr. Flood
The Bottom of the Harbor
Joe Gould’s Secret


And the majority of the book is nonfiction (a lot of which appeared in the New Yorker), but Old Mr. Flood and three other chapters are fictional. Feel that’s worth noting. Now the review...

I could tell I was gonna love this book about three pages into McSorley's Wonderful Saloon. And as far as I’m concerned, Up in the Old Hotel...more
Eddy Allen
Saloon-keepers and street preachers, gypsies and steel-walking Mohawks, a bearded lady and a 93-year-old “seafoodetarian” who believes his specialized diet will keep him alive for another two decades. These are among the people that Joseph Mitchell immortalized in his reportage for The New Yorker and in four books—McSorley's Wonderful Saloon, Old Mr. Flood, The Bottom of the Harbor, and Joe Gould's Secret—that are still renowned for their precise, respectful observation, their graveyard humor, a...more
Connie Courtney
This is a book that I come back to again and again. Stunning, otherwordly! It is a series of short stories by Joseph Mitchell who worked at the New Yorker. All of the stories are about real people who lived in NYC during the 30's and 40's. You are treated the the world of Mc Sorley's Wonderful Saloon, a bar that came into existence in the late 1800's. A bar with a potbellied stove for heat, various cats running around, a crusty owner from Ireland who collected strange memorabilia and hung it on...more
Charles
True New York stories circa 1930 to 1950 or thereabouts. Truly amazing writing that brings the nooks and crannies of the city to life. The author tends to leave himself almost entirely out of these essays and lets the characters (and these are some SERIOUSLY INTERESTING characters) speak and act for themselves. Drunks. Geniuses. Bartenders. Fishermen. Religous zealots. Gypsies. Best of all, these essays are excellent sources of history, as they capture a time and place that is gone forever. Each...more
Dianne
There's a lot of reading in this book and very good reading it is. Joseph Mitchell was a reporter in New York city during the 1930's and 40's so he knows how to tell a story; "Up In The Old Hotel" contains 37 of them. It takes a while to get through this book but it's pleasant reading and interesting stories so I don't think you'll mind the time.

The people in these stories are (for the most) real. They are the everyday people he got to know on the streets and in the diners and taverns of the cit...more
Mario
This is a collection of writings by Joseph Mitchell, who began writing for New Yorker in 1938, and actually comprises four previously published titles: McSorley's Wonderful Saloon, Old Mr. Flood, The Bottom of the Harbor, and Joe Gould's Secret. The bulk of these pieces are non-fiction. I've read all of the non-fiction pieces but for Joe Gould's Secret, which is considered Mitchell's masterpiece. I'm skipping the few fiction pieces for now and saving his masterpiece for another time, because I f...more
James
This is a wonderful and readable collection of Mitchell's essays, in which he lovingly describes haunts like the Fulton Fish Market and McSorley's, one of the last bars in America to admit women, and profiles various folk and colorful denizens of New York City's nether regions, most famously, Joe Gould, the bohemian character with whom he is inevitably and eternally linked. Mitchell demonstrates great skill as a writer by letting his subjects seemingly speak for themselves, all the while renderi...more
Dennis
Apr 01, 2008 Dennis rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyone who loves New York, Everyone who loves the New Yorker
I re-read this book every couple of years. It's both a way to time travel to the New York of the earlier twentieth city and an immersion in that compelling yet somehow effortless prose that drives me to pick up the New Yorker every time I see it. I want to visit the New York Mitchell describes, and I feel deeply cheated that it's gone.
This isn't just New York, the center of the civilized world, it's New York as a place that grew up out of a Dutch settlement surrounded by long grass at the confl...more
Teri
Jul 26, 2010 Teri rated it 5 of 5 stars
Recommended to Teri by: Bill Holcomb
Have wanted to read this book for years. Chose for our June 2010 book club so I will finally read it. I really want to!!

Four books published as one. All of the articles were published in the New Yorker. Superb writing by Joseph Mitchell. Many stories I look forward to reading again. Favorites: the two articles about the gypsies, "Dragger Captain" about Captain Ellery Thompson.(Loved Ellery!!). "The Mohawks in High Steel" about Indian riveting crews, "Up in the Old Hotel" which is about a restaur...more
Jon Choi
Brilliant, lively, an up-close description of the pulsating heart of New York life. "Up in the Old Hotel" collects stories from Mitchell's time as a reporter, mostly writing on the eccentric working class. He spends time wandering through graveyards with retired African-American pastors, patronizing bars, and interviewing the fascinating, salt-crusted denizens of the New York City docks of the 50's. Entertaining in the extreme - a glimpse into a vanished real New York.
Kevin Frisch
"In the opinion of many (which is a by no means modest way of saying 'in my opinion'), the finest writer on The New Yorker is Joseph Mitchell." So wrote Brendan Gill, a bright light himself among that publication's constellation, in his 1975 memoir "Here at The New Yorker." He knows of what he writes. To open "Up in the Old Hotel" is to put oneself in the hands of a veteran reporter, which Mitchell was, and an unerring stylist, which Mitchell also was. The pieces, some fictional, many not, first...more
Hayden
This is truly one of my all-time favorite books ever. The compilations of stories.. Or should I say portraits, puts me right there in time and space. Joseph Mitchell's style and prose is truly amazing. Although written in a journalist's hand, Mitchell is so thoughtful and appreciative of the subtleties of his subjects. While painting in bold and vibrant strokes, his perception and astute nature allow the reader insight into the personalities of the people and places that he writes about to an ex...more
Katie Knight
I'm re-reading this now. Each essay reveals something new and surprising about early 20th century New York City. My favorites are the Old Mr. Flood essays, where you learn a lot about Fulton Fish Market and the characters that wander there. I never expected to be so engrossed in a essays about fishmongering (I'm vegan), but everything is so lively and quotable and delightful, it really doesn't matter how you feel about fish.
Melissa
I confess that I didn't read every page--the fishing descriptions got a little old. And it's such a big book that I did get overwhelmed at times.
But the writing is the kind that you can wrap yourself up in. Mitchell's character studies can't be beat, and it's a wonderful slice of New York and American history.
I only wish I had discovered him in smaller pieces!
Ian Vasquez
An unassuming, interesting collection of nonfiction pieces. Mitchell, a journalist and former staffer at the New Yorker who died in 1996, has been called a writer's writer; he wrote in simple, declarative style and with deep empathy for his subjects. Many of his stories were written in the '20s and 30s but sound as fresh as any journalism being written today.
Michael
Gracefully written stories of old New York. Marvelous characters that are preserved by Mitchell from being forgotten by history. Incidentally, the author had a major writer's block in his later years and came to work at "The New Yorker" every day for years but didn't produce any copy. Can you imagine any empoyer today with that kind of compassion?
Marissa
I liked this book for about the first half of it, but as the stories went on and on, and none of them contained any real plot, I became worn out. By the time I reached Joe Gould's Secret I gave up. After 500 pages, I wasn't interested in revisiting a character I had already read about earlier.

Mitchell is a gifted writer, but I think I should have tackled each of his works individually. Trying to read them all back to back was exhausting. It also didn't help that I had two books I was anxious to...more
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Up in the Old Hotel (Hardcover)
Up in the Old Hotel (Paperback)
Up in the Old Hotel (Paperback)
Up in the Old Hotel and Other Stories (Hardcover)
Up in the Old Hotel and Other Stories (Paperback)

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Joseph Mitchell was an American writer who wrote for The New Yorker. He is known for his carefully written portraits of eccentrics and people on the fringes of society, especially in and around New York City.
-Wikipedia
More about Joseph Mitchell...
Joe Gould's Secret McSorley's Wonderful Saloon My Ears Are Bent The Bottom Of The Harbor (Vintage Classics) Old Mr. Flood

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“Also, I had not yet found out about time; I was still under the illusion that I had plenty of time - time for this, time for that, time for everything, time to waste.” 2 people liked it
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