Flophouse Quotes

This mobility [changing jobs and housing three times in 30 months in New York City] was made possible by a buoyant housing and job market, ensuring a low transaction cost of changing jobs and location. By contrast, in Paris (where we came from), housing mobility was hampered by 2-year leases that could not be broken without penalties. Additionally, job mobility was frowned on as a sign of instability-- changing jobs three times in 30 months would have resulted in a resume that raised a lot of eyebrows.

When-- after just 6 months with my first employer in New York-- I found a job that was a better fit with my long-term interests, I was terribly embarrassed by the prospect of telling my employer that I was quitting. My colleagues at work reassured me that this was done all the time in New York, and that a higher salary was a very honorable reason to change jobs. Indeed, my employer gave me a good luck party when I quit!

This is mobility. A flexible labor market, an open housing market-- the flophouse [urban housing] with its low standards but very low rent was essential to getting us started-- and a transport system that is fast, affordable, and extensive enough to allow individuals to look for jobs in an entire metropolitan area rather than just in limited locations. ~ Alain Bertaud

black gloom settled over the Palace Flophouse. ~ John Steinbeck

Holden stopped next to the desk and turned around to look at the woman sitting on the couch. Graying hair, but good features and an athletic build. In a flophouse like this, that probably meant a prostitute reaching the end of her shelf life. ~ James S.A. Corey

Doc awakened very slowly and clumsily like a fat man getting out of a swimming pool. His mind broke the surface and fell back several times. There was red lipstick on his beard. He opened one eye, saw the brilliant colors of the quilt and closed his eye quickly. But after a while he looked again. His eye went past the quilt to the floor, to the broken plate in the corner, to the glasses standing on the table turned over on the floor, to the spilled wine and the books like heavy fallen butterflies. There were little bits of curled red paper all over the place and the sharp smell of firecrackers. He could see through the kitchen door to the steak plates stacked high and the skillets deep in grease. Hundreds of cigarette butts were stamped out on the floor. And under the firecracker smell was a fine combination of wine and whiskey perfume. His eye stopped for a moment on a little pile of hairpins in the middle of the floor.
He rolled over slowly and supporting himself on one elbow he looked out the broken window. Cannery Row was quiet and sunny. The boiler was open. The door of the Palace Flophouse was closed. A man slept peacefully among the weeds in the vacant lot. The Bear Flag was shut up tight. ~ John Steinbeck

From flophouse bed
To poorhouse bread,
all outhouse sorrow:
I thee wed. ~ Roman Payne