Moose Productions Blog

Hello, and welcome to the first posting of the Flophouse documentary.

First and foremost, I should introduce myself. I am Graham.

Good, that’s out of the way.

The ultimate purpose of this film will be to document the passing, or the impending extinction of what was once a major part of the infrastructure and culture of New York City, the flophouse.

For those of you who do not know, a flophouse is quite simply a place where people go to sleep for the night. People who cannot afford a monthly rent, but who can maintain enough cash flow to stay off the streets, barely.
Not surprisingly, flophouses are inhabited almost exclusively by men. These are men often crippled with addiction or mental illness. They sleep in rooms big enough for one cot and nothing else, rooms that have no ceiling of their own, placed one next to the other, connected at the top by chicken wire. The stories from the flop are often sad, stories of families broken down, stories of estrangement. Many of the men are old men. Wrinkled by time and gravity, their faces are the embodiment of regret and forlorn. In some of our research visits to flophouses, we have found a great deal of men with terminal illness. The men sit next to oxygen tanks, and talk of days they used to spend with family. It’s the last stop for many. A kind of purgatory of silent introspection, until the day the ambulance arrives and they are taken off. The flophouse transforms into a hospice for the marginalized, for the forgotten.

But there are not only sad stories from the flops, there are stories of hope as well. Sometimes old men manage to sober up and find a job, often a job cleaning for or working the desk of the flop itsef. One man I talked to, Sam, looked 75 but was 54, his demeanor jovial– he welcomed my introduction with curiosity. He had been living at the White House Hotel (one of nyc’s oldest flops) for 12 years. He works as a clerk there, and enjoys the feeling of getting his paycheck at the end of the week. We sat on a bench outside of the flop and he watched the passing pedestrians with the slow eye of a man who’s seen all he wants to see. When I asked him if he had children, he said yes. But his warm inviting face stiffened, and it became clear I had hit a soft spot. Soon, he changed the subject, and pointed out an attractive female as she walked past. There is a deep pain and lonliness in Sam, but at the same time, there is a hope.

That’s it for this post.
This documentary is being produced by Moose Productions. We are currently in the pre-production research phase.
This blog will serve as a record of our discoveries throughout the process of creating the film.

Best Regards to All,

Graham Meriwether