The play opens at 7 a.m. on Memorial Day. The hotel is being torn down and the residents are being notified that they have one month left before they must move.

As Bill notifies the hotel’s residents, Mrs. Bellotti enters looking for Katz, who has refused to allow her son to move back into the hotel. Millie begins a conversation with the Girl about ghosts.

April complains about several things: the sunlight, her inability to sleep, the change to daylight savings time, and the state of the water in the hotel. Mr. Morse enters and loudly complains that his window does not close tightly and that he may well become sick from the draft.

Jackie and Jamie enter, and Jackie immediately begins looking for Katz. Jackie goes up to Morse’s room to fix the stuck window. Katz finally enters and is accosted by the entire group with their complaints.

Jackie returns to the lobby to ask Katz to cosign a loan she needs; he refuses. In the middle of their conversation, Suzy enters with a customer. Katz tries to stop the man from going upstairs with Suzy, but she claims that he is a friend who is going upstairs to have a drink with her.

Mrs. Bellotti pleads with Katz to allow her son to return to the hotel. Katz will not consider it, claiming that Bellotti’s son is a thief. Mrs. Bellotti tells everyone that her husband has recently had his leg amputated because of diabetes and that he will not allow the son to return to their home. Jamie, who has been playing checkers with Morse, offers to help Mrs. Bellotti pack her son’s belongings.

The Girl receives a phone call from her pimp and sets up an appointment with a customer, which bothers Bill. Suzy’s customer comes downstairs, followed by a naked Suzy, who is complaining that the man beat her and locked her out of her room. At that moment, Jamie is descending the stairs and sees Suzy, minus her towel. He is so startled that he drops the box he is carrying.