It seems that in the 20 century there were hotels where people lived long-term. For example, E.M. Remarque's heroes, poor, many of them immigrants, are living in hotels (not at all fancy, mind you) in post-WWII Europe. The more well-off also did, Chelsea Hotel comes to mind here, and I also know Nabokov lived in hotels in the 1960s. Maybe the rich still do live in hotels, I wouldn't know. My question is, what was the timeframe when the poor lived in hotels in Europe and when and how did they stop? I would think it could be related to cheap housing being built or something.. Ideally I would love to read a book on history of hotels, any reccomendations? Thanks!!
I love this topic and wish I knew more about it. A similar question was recently asked and I attempted to answer it somewhat...I'll quote a bit of it.
Oscar Wilde lived in the Savoy in London, and it was here that he engaged in the infamous affair with Lord Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas, resulting in his being found guilty of committing acts of “gross indecency” and sentenced to two years hard labor.
In “A Moveable Feast,” Ernest Hemingway describes the bohemian scene of Paris in the ‘20s, including various artists residing in various hotels of varying degrees of respectability.
Gregory Corso, the American Beat poet, lived at a hotel in Paris’ Latin Quarter where he composed many of his more famous poems; the hotel would draw others from that literary circle, and was known as the Beat Hotel Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky would join him in 1957. William S. Burroughs arrived not long thereafter. Burroughs and Ginsberg each produced fruitful work while residing here in Paris.
Sources:
"A Moveable Feast", Ernest Hemingway
http://www.citizenmag.com/2012/07/16/living-in-hotels/
http://www.literarytraveler.com/hotels/the-beat-hotel-american-writers-in-paris-1957-1963/
Hope someone can provide a more scholarly source, because I'd love to read it as well.
I have never read E.M. Remarque, but my gut tells me that the hotels may have been more like boarding houses or tenements; is this accurate? Could you give more examples of where you've come across the phenomenon of poor living in hotels, please?