View source for Beat Hotel

{{Short description|Hotel in Paris, France}}
{{other uses}}
[[Image:PeterGolldingParisfifties.jpg|thumb|250px|Outside The Beat Hotel, [[Paris]]: [[Peter Golding]], Madame Rachou (Proprietor) and [[Robin Page]], Peter's busking partner.{{clarify | reason = there are four subjects in the photo but only three names|date=November 2015}} Photo: Mike Kay]]
[[File:Plaque Beat Hotel, 9 rue Gît-le-Cœur, Paris 6.jpg|thumb|Plaque installed in 2009]]
The '''Beat Hotel''' was a small, run-down hotel of 42 rooms at 9 [[Rue Gît-le-Cœur]] in the [[Latin Quarter]] of [[Paris]], notable chiefly as a residence for members of the [[Beat poetry]] movement of the mid-20th century.<ref>[http://www.times.com/books/first/m/miles-beat.html First Chapter] ''The Beat Hotel: Ginsberg, Burroughs, and Corso in Paris, 1957-1963'', by Barry Miles. 2001. {{ISBN|1-903809-14-2}} ''[[The New York Times]]''</ref>

==Overview==
It was a "class 13" hotel, meaning bottom line, a place that was required by law to meet only minimum health and safety standards. It never had any proper name – "the Beat Hotel" was a nickname given it by [[Gregory Corso]],{{contradictory inline| reason = In the article 'Harold Chapman' it says that the nickname was conferred by Verta Kali Smart|date=November 2015}} which stuck.<ref>''This Is the Beat Generation: New York-San Francisco-Paris'', by James Campbell. Published by [[University of California Press]], 2001. {{ISBN|0-520-23033-7}}. ''Page 221''.</ref><ref>''Nothing is True - Everything is Permitted: The Life of Brion Gysin'', by John Geiger. Published by The Disinformation Company, 2005. {{ISBN|1-932857-12-5}}. ''Page 121''.</ref> The rooms had windows facing the interior stairwell and not much light. Hot water was available Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. The hotel offered the opportunity for a bath – in the only bathtub, situated on the ground floor – provided the guest reserved time beforehand and paid the surcharge for hot water. Curtains and bedspreads were changed and washed every spring. The linen was (in principle) changed every month.

The Beat Hotel was managed by a married couple, Monsieur and Madame Rachou, from 1933. After the death of Monsieur Rachou in a traffic accident in 1957, Madame was the sole manager until the early months of 1963, when the hotel was closed. Besides letting rooms, the establishment had a small bistro on the ground floor. Due to early experiences with working at an inn frequented by [[Claude Monet]] and [[Camille Pissarro]], Madame Rachou would encourage artists and writers to stay at the hotel and even at times permit them to pay the rent with paintings or manuscripts. One unusual thing that appealed to a clientele of bohemian artists was the permission to paint and decorate the rooms rented in whichever way they wanted.

==Fame with the Beat Generation==
The hotel gained fame through the extended "family" of [[Beat generation|beat]] writers and artists who stayed there from the late 1950s to the early 1960s in a ferment of creativity.

[[Gregory Corso]] was introduced to the hotel by painter and resident [[Guy Harloff]] in 1957.<ref>{{cite web |title=William Burroughs Conversation – 11 |url=https://allenginsberg.org/2020/08/m-a-3/ |website=The Allen Ginsberg Project |date=3 August 2020 |access-date=4 June 2022}}</ref> In September of that year, Corso would be joined by [[Allen Ginsberg]] and [[Peter Orlovsky]]. [[William S. Burroughs]], [[Derek Raymond]], and [[Harold Norse]], as well as [[Sinclair Beiles]] would follow. It was here that Burroughs completed the text of ''[[Naked Lunch]]'' <ref>''Ecstasy of the Beats: On the Road to Understanding'', by David Creighton. Published by Dundurn Press Ltd., 2007. {{ISBN|1-55002-734-4}}. Page 126.</ref> and began his lifelong collaboration with [[Brion Gysin]]. It was also where [[Ian Sommerville (technician)|Ian Sommerville]] became Burroughs' "systems advisor" and lover. Gysin introduced Burroughs to the [[cut-up technique]] and with Sommerville they experimented with a "dream machine" and audio tape cut-ups. Here [[Harold Norse|Norse]] wrote a novel ''Beat Hotel'' using cut-up techniques.<ref>''Notebooks'', by [[Tennessee Williams]], Margaret Bradham Thornton. Published by [[Yale University Press]], 2006. {{ISBN|0-300-11682-9}}. Page 420.</ref> Ginsberg wrote a part of his moving and mature poem ''[[Kaddish (poem)|Kaddish]]'' at the hotel, and Corso wrote the [[mushroom cloud]]-shaped poem ''Bomb''.

There is now a small hotel, the four-star Relais du Vieux Paris, at that address. It displays photographs of several Beat personalities and describes itself as "The Beat Hotel".<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.sleeping-around.com/europe/relaisvieux.shtml |title=The Beat Hotel |access-date=2009-01-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110305100540/http://www.sleeping-around.com/europe/relaisvieux.shtml |archive-date=2011-03-05 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In July 2009, as part of a major William Burroughs symposium NakedLunch@50, a special tribute was held outside 9 Rue Gît-le-Coeur, with [[Jean-Jacques Lebel]] unveiling a ''plaque commemorative'', now permanently hammered to the outside wall next to the main entrance, honoring the Beat Hotel's seven most famous occupants: B. Gysin, H. Norse, G. Corso, A. Ginsberg, P. Orlovsky, I. Sommerville, W. Burroughs.

== Bibliography ==
* ''The Beat Hotel'', by [[Harold Chapman (photographer)|Harold Chapman]], gris banal, éditeur (1984)
* ''The Beat Hotel: Ginsberg, Burroughs, and Corso in Paris, 1957-1963'', by Barry Miles (2001) ({{ISBN|1-903809-14-2}}) [https://books.google.com/books?id=vTJ1zCd_9-YC&q=%22Beat+Hotel%22+Paris&pg=PA1 Excerpts]
* ''Beat Hotel'', by [[Harold Norse]], Published by Atticus Press, 1983. {{ISBN|0-912377-00-3}}.
* ''The Birth of the Beat Generation: Visionaries, Rebels, and Hipsters, 1944-1960'', by [[Steven Watson (author)|Steven Watson]]. Published by Pantheon Books, 1995. {{ISBN|0-679-42371-0}}.
*''Fleabag Shrine: Diverse Particulars Apropos of No. 9 rue Git-le-Coeur'', by Gregory Stephenson. Published by Ober-Limbo Verlag, Heidelberg, Germany, 2021. ISBN 978-87-971569-3-3.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
* [http://www.thebeathotelmovie.com/ Documentary about The Beat Hotel]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20090116071733/http://www.kerouacfest.com/currentpage/souvenirs.htm Souvenirs of the Beat Hotel by Baird Bryant]
* [https://archive.today/20130114024337/http://www.topfoto.co.uk/gallery/beathotel/default.htm The Beat Hotel photographs (late 1950s and early 1960s)] by [[Harold Chapman (photographer)|Harold Chapman]]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060927194244/http://www.111.co.za/Archive/BeatHotel/beat_hotel_reconstructed.htm Beat Hotel Reconstruction at "Sinclair Beiles and the Beat Hotel" Exhibition, 24 January 1997]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20190625222639/https://www.messynessychic.com/2019/06/21/inside-the-beat-hotel-of-paris/ Inside the Beat Hotel of Paris]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CroEm2v0tnI The Road to the Beat Hotel] Video clip. [[Eddie Woods]] and others in a special Beat Hotel tribute on the Rue Gît-le-Coeur, Paris (July 2009).
* [https://archive.today/20130419211438/http://www.beathotel.co.uk/ www.beathotel.co.uk] (a comedy puppet show inspired by the original hotel)

{{William S. Burroughs}}
{{Allen Ginsberg}}
{{Hotels in Paris}}
{{coord|48|51|13.85|N|2|20|33.91|E|region:FR-75_type:landmark_source:dewiki|display=title}}

[[Category:Beat Generation]]
[[Category:Hotels in Paris]]
[[Category:Defunct hotels in France]]
[[Category:Hotel buildings completed in 1933]]
[[Category:Latin Quarter, Paris]]
[[Category:1933 establishments in France]]
[[Category:1963 disestablishments in France]]
[[Category:Hotels established in 1933]]
[[Category:Hotels disestablished in 1963]]