Living downtown : the history of residential hotels in the United States / Paul Groth.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Groth, Paul Erling.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hotels--United States--Sociological aspects.

Hotels.

Lodging-houses--United States--Sociological aspects.

Lodging-houses.

City and town life--United States.

City and town life.

Taverns (Inns).

Single people--Housing.

History.

Single people.

Housing.

Single-room occupancy hotels.

United States.

Single-room occupancy hotels--United States--History.

Hotels--United States--History.

Architecture and society--United States.

Architecture and society.

Housing--United States--Sociological aspects.

Single people--Housing--History.

Taverns (Inns)--United States--Sociological aspects.

Genre:

Dust jackets (Binding)

Physical Description:

xxii, 401 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, [1994]

Contents:

Conflicting ideas about hotel life. Hotel homes and cosmopolitan diversity. Barriers to understanding hotel living. San Francisco's hotels as exemplars

Palace hotels and social opulence. Personal ease and instant social position. Incubators for a mobile high society. Conversion experiences for the new city

Midpriced mansions for middle incomes. Convenience for movable lives. Mansions for rent. Alternative quarters. Room for exceptions

Rooming houses and the margins of respectability. Plain rooms. Economic limbo. Rooming house districts: Diversity and mixture. Downtown alternatives to rooming houses. Scattered homes versus material correctness

Outsiders and cheap lodging houses. Essential outcasts. No-family houses. Zones for single laborers: Skid Row and Chinatown. Fronts for embarrassing economic realities

Building a civilization without homes. Owners and managers. Specialization for single use. Public impressions and residential opposition.

Hotel homes as a public nuisance. Hotel critics and reform ranks. Concerns for the family. Hazards for the individual. Threats to urban citizenship. Hotel homes as a public nuisance

From scattered opinion to centralized policy. Forging frameworks for housing change. Early arenas of hotel control. Doctrinaire idealism and deliberate ignorance. Buildings as targets and surrogates

Prohibition versus pluralism. Losing ground: Changing contexts, 1930-1970. Official prohibitions of hotel life, 1930-1970. Since 1970: Conflicts surrounding hotel life. The prospect of pluralism in housing. History urban experts and pluralism

Appendix: Hotel and employment statistics.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Jacket design by Nola Burger.

Local Notes:

Athenaeum copy: Ex libris Andrew Craig Morrison.

ISBN:

0520068769

OCLC:

29218918