Places Unknown and Now Erased
A moment of remembrance for a place I've never been
July 6th, 2025, Port-au-Prince, Haiti -- Arsonists burn the historic Hotel Oloffson to the ground. A once-popular hotel for visiting artists like Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams, the intricately constructed wooden structure served as a safe haven for creatives and the LGBT+ community in a country that has long been plagued by violence and instability.
Until last week's disaster, I had never heard of the Oloffson. Reading about the tragedy introduced me to its romantic history, being dubbed "the Greenwich Village of the Tropics": hosting parties and dignitaries; serving as a cultural incubator to generations.
The news reports were grim, inevitably touching on the political and social turmoil that consumes much of the country. It seems that even some Haitians are reluctant to mourn the loss of the hotel too completely. After all, there are more pressing issues to confront than the burned carcass of a building and its legacy; namely the uptick in killings, sexual violence, and existential threats to a people and a society. Still, I find the hotel’s loss tragic, too. Even in the worst of times and places, people need beauty, pleasure, and hope.
I have a Haitian friend, an architect, who is doing important work in his country — helping to rebuild ports, creating the possibility of a better future. From what he's told me, it's daunting work made harder by politics, historic corruption, and an increasing level of gang violence that has him traveling around his own country in an armored vehicle. I asked him if he had ever been to the Hotel Oloffson. The answer was 'yes.'
This newsletter is about friendship, family, and art. The artistry of our world is not just in the beautiful things that we know about, but also the beautiful things we've never heard of and will never encounter. It's a wide world with lots of friendship, lots of family, and lots of art. I may never get to Haiti, and now I will never see the Oloffson, but I understand the emotional loss all the same.
Below are my friend's thoughts on the hotel, translated from French. His words are beautiful, and poetic, and heartbreaking.
To see ourselves in a global, shared legacy as artists, and as queer people (and, more fundamentally, simply as humans), is to bear witness to the cultural losses which may not touch us directly, but in whose absence we are all lessened. I believe that the repeated use of a space —for social sanctuary, for creation, for beauty, and for joy— gradually sanctifies it, more surely than any theology. I’m glad to use our time together in today’s newsletter to honor the loss of this one, particular, holy space.
In honor of the Hotel, I will leave you with some photos, shared by my friend, of Haiti and its beauty.
