New York City’s hotels have long been a spot of inspiration for writers and authors. Arthur Miller and William S. Burroughs were known to do their most creative work while living in and working from the Chelsea Hotel; Kay Thompson’s Eloise series features life from the top of the Plaza hotel; Maya Angelou always rented a hotel room to focus on her poetry and prose.
The coronavirus pandemic, for all its hardships, tragedies, and chaos, has many of the City’s creatives adopting this habit. Hotels are thirsty for business, the writers are desperate for reclusive spaces– it’s a win/win situation.
Writer Stan Parish, for example, has always been fond of hotels. Now, he says, he has been using them as ad hoc home-office space while simultaneously enjoying the amenities. For Parish it is the “neutrality” of the hotel environment that is most enticing. With minimal distractions and maximum simplicity, he can get a lot of writing done.
The restrictions on indoor seating at restaurants and coffee shops had many writers scrambling for space. Other authors point to the quiet as their primary reason for booking a hotel room. With most living rooms turning into classrooms and homes becoming makeshift offices, the serenity of a hotel room can be critical to the creative process.
