Day 17 – Empire Hotel.
44 West 63rd Street (across Columbus from the Lincoln Center)
The home of Gossip Girl – apparently. Or featured in it repeatedly, or some such. Anyhoo, I needed a UWS hotel close by as I had less than three hours to dump Johnny at ‘camp’, get to writing location, spend minimum of two hours penning the fabulous adventures of hero Edwardian schoolboy Roger Spoffin, and get back to pick up Johnny. The Empire fit the bill.
Been past this place a million times (it’s on the triangle where Broadway crosses Columbus) and it’s nice enough. Got a kind of jungle theme going on with the colours – all orange and ochre and brass and black. The lobby and bar – which runs off the lobby – were half-filled with guests on their iPhones drinking Starbucks when I arrived. That’s a bad sign, as it usually means no service. And so it was. For two hours I sat writing, no one bothered me, then I left.
The result was the highest hourly word count since I began.
Today’s word count: 2,327
Word count to date: 43,830
