http://www.sorabji.com/pictures/Parc_Lincoln/ transient hotel when I lived there. Click here to join a nascent discussion of transient hotels, rented rooms, and similar accommodations.

Room 317 at the Parc Lincoln Hotel (166 West 75th Street in Manhattan) is the first room I had for any length of time in New York. I was at the Parc Lincoln for about 9 months in 1990 and 1991. Before landing in Room 317 I was in room 1422 for a few weeks, and before that I stayed with college friends in New York and Philadelphia. Room 317 was a wretched, hot, roach-infested shithole. The Parc Lincoln has since been largely renovated to accommodate wealthy and celebrity residents, so I assume this room no longer exists as pictured here. I think about this room a lot. As miserable as it was, my life as I know it today began in room 317, and at the Parc Lincoln.]]> en-us sorabji.com Gallery 2 RSS Module, version 1.1.7 Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:17:00 -0500 360 http://www.sorabji.com/pictures/d/85456-12/Parc_Lincoln.jpg http://www.sorabji.com/pictures/Parc_Lincoln/ http://www.sorabji.com/pictures/Parc_Lincoln/envelope_002.jpg.html http://www.sorabji.com/pictures/Parc_Lincoln/envelope_002.jpg.html ]]> mark thomas photo Tue, 21 Jul 2009 01:27:20 -0400 http://www.sorabji.com/pictures/Parc_Lincoln/envelope_001.jpg.html http://www.sorabji.com/pictures/Parc_Lincoln/envelope_001.jpg.html ]]> mark thomas photo Tue, 21 Jul 2009 01:27:07 -0400 http://www.sorabji.com/pictures/Parc_Lincoln/phone_booths_parc_lincoln.jpg.html http://www.sorabji.com/pictures/Parc_Lincoln/phone_booths_parc_lincoln.jpg.html
This row of rotary dial payphones used to occupy a portion of the lobby of the Parc Lincoln Hotel at 166 West 75th Street in Manhattan. I used these phones the first time I called the Apology Line, a New York-based telephone art project run by an artist who called himself "Mr. Apology." Mr. A. and I eventually became friends, and worked together on the project, producing a magazine and various forms of publicity -- that publicity eventually led to an 8-page story about Apology in the New Yorker magazine. The phone on the left (the one on top of the phone) was connected to Apology when I took this picture. This photo is probably from 1991 but it could be from late 1990, which was around the time I found Apology. These were old school phone booths with closing doors, fans to circulate the air, and I seem to remember phone books being present though you can't see any in this picture. One night while listening to Apology I was approached by a gay man who tried to squeeze into the booth with me. I remember jamming the door shut with my leg as he tried to make his move, but eventually he went away. He was one of many colorful characters who spent his days and nights sitting in and around the lobby of the Parc Lincoln.]]> mark thomas photo Sun, 12 Oct 2008 17:57:34 -0400 http://www.sorabji.com/pictures/Parc_Lincoln/room_314.jpg.html http://www.sorabji.com/pictures/Parc_Lincoln/room_314.jpg.html
Through this propped-open door came sounds of a woman who talked continuously, droning for hour upon hour about what I could not tell. I could never distinguish the words. This door was virtually always propped open, no matter the time of day, but I never saw into this room until the day I left the Parc Lincoln. I wanted to see this woman, to see what condition she was in, and to match a face to the voice that had accompanied my comings and goings from room 317. I was not able to see her, though. With the door to room 314 open I only saw a table and a basket of laundry. I think I made a cassette recording of this woman talking, but if I did then the tape is lost. In addition to the sound of her voice she (or whoever else may have been present with her) also listened to opera arias.]]> mark thomas photo Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:47:54 -0400 http://www.sorabji.com/pictures/Parc_Lincoln/landing_pad.jpg.html http://www.sorabji.com/pictures/Parc_Lincoln/landing_pad.jpg.html
This roof is pretty clean in this picture (except for the bird poop) but this is where bags of garbage landed after being dropped from the higher floors of the Parc Lincoln. Some of those bags landed with a terrific thud, others filled with bottles landed with a shattering clatter. Once in a while a bag dropped from a very high floor was preceded by a whistling noise as it raced to the earth.]]> mark thomas photo Fri, 12 Sep 2008 13:18:00 -0400 http://www.sorabji.com/pictures/Parc_Lincoln/burner.jpg.html http://www.sorabji.com/pictures/Parc_Lincoln/burner.jpg.html
The burner was my kitchen, but when I was not cooking up some fabulous feast I sometimes kept the burner on to keep the roaches away. I seem to remember this little refrigerator as being not fully functional, but my memory could be wrong. There is a passage from short story by John Updike (called "The Morning") which perfectly captures how it felt for me to wake up in this room. Updike described "the same shivering, half-height refrigerator, the same nagging, sour smell" of a room in which he lived his monotonous life and where he waited for a lover to visit. I had one lover in this room, but I made Updike's phrase my own for its evocation of this half-height refrigerator, the smells of room 317, and the adventure of misery that was living here.]]> mark thomas photo Sat, 04 Oct 2008 22:47:08 -0400 http://www.sorabji.com/pictures/Parc_Lincoln/parc_lincoln_boxes.jpg.html http://www.sorabji.com/pictures/Parc_Lincoln/parc_lincoln_boxes.jpg.html
The boxes on the floor are full of stuff my mother sent me from the house in Tampa. It's funny to think about it now, but what was I thinking? Where did I think I was going where I would have room for more boxes full of stuff? I had no plan, no promises, and only lies to go on in my decision to move to New York and to stay here for the duration. I have never wanted to live anywhere else but I must have been out of my mind to think I could just march up here -- straight out of college with a worthless degree in piano performance -- and make that happen.

In this picture you can point your mouse at certain objects to get a little story about them.]]> mark thomas photo Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:02:29 -0400 http://www.sorabji.com/pictures/Parc_Lincoln/parc-lincoln_looking_up.jpg.html http://www.sorabji.com/pictures/Parc_Lincoln/parc-lincoln_looking_up.jpg.html
It was from these upper floors of the Parc Lincoln that various forms of garbage were dropped. I heard glass bottles smash to the roof of the building below, and the thudding sound of plastic trash bags as a constant intrusion on whatever serenity I could reach. Sometimes I could hear the whistling sound of the object before it landed. I assume those were heavy objects dropped from the highest floors.

One night I was woken up by sounds of people on one of these upper floors telling somebody to "put it down!" Someone had a gun. I remember that sound, the sound of the fear in those voices.]]> mark thomas photo Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:01:06 -0400 http://www.sorabji.com/pictures/Parc_Lincoln/hallway_parc_lincoln.jpg.html http://www.sorabji.com/pictures/Parc_Lincoln/hallway_parc_lincoln.jpg.html
Behind the first door on the right lived a man with some kind of awful breathing disorder. At the time I thought it was emphysema but I may be wrong. He smoked constantly, and he coughed like death would come hurling from his mouth at the next gasp for air. He seemed amiable enough but the ghastly sounds of his coughing tore through the door and the walls all day and all night.

The shared bathroom was at the end of this hall, as was the elevator and access to the stairs. The ceiling of room 317 also contained the same sort of bare light bulbs you see on the ceiling of this hallway.]]> mark thomas photo Fri, 12 Sep 2008 15:57:21 -0400 http://www.sorabji.com/pictures/Parc_Lincoln/room_317_bed.jpg.html http://www.sorabji.com/pictures/Parc_Lincoln/room_317_bed.jpg.html
On the other side of this wall lived an opera singer. I seem to remember that he was not a bad singer, but he rehearsed his arias at some unlikely hours, meaning Turandot might rise up from his room at 11pm. He also had a large dog which yelped and barked during the day but not at night.

The opera singer moved out and the room next door was inhabited by a series of transients. I remember seeing one such traveler check in. He wore a $4 dress shirt and carried a hand-me-down briefcase as he tried to wrest the door open. He had enough trouble with the door that he had to get assistance from the front desk. When he slept at night I could hear the springs on his bed creak, and I assume he could hear my nocturnal movements as well. We were not even 2 feet away from each other, and this wall did nothing to suppress sound.

Don't let the Marriott insignia on the sheet fool you. This place was no Marriott. My guess is that the sheets were hand-me-downs from the Marriott hotel chain.]]> mark thomas photo Sun, 12 Oct 2008 11:15:47 -0400