Hotel Mark Twain 2012
Mixed Media
in 19 x 32 x 5
This sign was sighted on a side street just off Hollywood Boulevard. It is not a "ghost" in the sense that it is still there and in just this condition. But it is this condition that leads me to fear that it will become a "ghost" very soon. When I chose it as a subject for my art I started researching and at first all I could find were client reviews. It is still a working hotel. But the reviews were so bad it really got me laughing. Here's an example- "This is absolutely the worst hotel on the planet. It smelled of fowl (sic) feminine odor and was riddled with bugs and crack heads. I literally threw up in my mouth when we saw our room." The only historical reference I could find was in Gregory Paul Williams "The Story Of Hollywood" which, recounting the story of Joe Barbera of Hanna Barbera fame, described the hotel thus, "He checked into the Mark Twain Hotel on Wilcox (in 1937), which he later wrote was modeled after a "not particularly enlightened penitentiary.'" So it seems like the hotel still lives up to the standards of its glory years.
