Report from a NYC budget hotel
A budget hotel in New York is one that has a pricetag that someone other than Saudi royalty can afford. I’m staying in one of them right now, and you know what? It’s not bad.
It has some drawbacks, of course. One is the lack of a lobby; maybe four chairs and that’s it. No food except one vending machine – and another similar hotel I stayed in recently didn’t even have that. But it does have a little fridge, which helps – although no microwave, which doesn’t help. No ice bucket. No ice machine. No drawers, although two tiny square open cubbies.
No closet, but a foot-wide opening with a bar across the top and a few hangers. Woe to you if two people occupy the space and have enough clothes for a week and a couple of parties. No place to put more than one suitcase. No carpet, which must make it easier to clean and more allergy-free, but isn’t very comfy. A very small bathroom with almost no counter space.
But good beds. A good shower and lots of hot water. A decent although not overwhelming number of outlets. Speedy-enough wifi. Fairly quiet although not soundproofed.
But what’s up with this – a new pet peeve of mine, and not limited to New York hotels at all – nothing to hold onto in the shower. Now, fortunately, I don’t really need something of that sort. But it’s a nice thing to have, even for young people. And I would assume that it would protect the hotels from lawsuits as well.
Also, I’ve noticed there’s a sort of euro-styling in these places. Things look very spiffy but are small and tight, as though in a boat. But since “regular” hotels in New York and Boston are now going for between six hundred and eight hundred dollars a night for a regular room, the budget hotel is very much in my future.
I recently stayed at the Spring Inn, Bloomfield, Knox County, Nebraska.
On a price to value ratio, better than the Ritz Carlton!
Neo;
After you get out of Dodge (i.e., NYC) perhaps you could tell your readers which hotel you stayed out.
A lot of us would be amenable to paying a lot less for a hotel in NYC.
Think of it as your own DOGE efforts.
While on a cross country trip with my mom, I learned to ask for a handicap room on the first floor. The room and the bathroom was larger than the normal room. It was nice that I didn’t have to worry about my mom falling trying to get into the shower. And the room was closer to the lobby and I didn’t have to walk as far with the luggage.
Sound like some of the hotels we have stayed at in the UK.
Several yr ago we remodeled out bathrooms. Grab bars in the shower, main one has built in seat, the other has a fold down seat. Grab bars by the toilets too.
We are 78, so thinking ahead. Many yrs ago when we redid the front area, we put in a concrete ramp.
“now going for between six hundred and eight hundred dollars a night for a regular room”
I haven’t been to NY or the Northeast in years. So those prices shocked me.
No ice machine! How can one have whiskey on the rocks?!!
Neo I feel your pain as I am currently shopping hotel stays in London and Paris for a niece’s wedding. Yikes!
On Trip Advisor ‘Budget’ London hotels start at $300 a night.
40 years ago we splurged and stayed at the Paris Ritz for $150 a night.
Inflation calculator tells me that is the equivalent of about $600 in current dollars. I’m not going to bother to look but I doubt a room at the Ritz can be had for anywhere near that now.
Care to do a post on what ridiculous productions weddings have become?
Molly, I just looked for you. 2000Euros a night.
Have you looked on Trip Advisor, or other consolidators? You can find small hotel for way less than $600. Stayed several years ago, I think the room was around $250 for two of us.
Nice room, a block from the Invaladies.
When did toilet stalls stop having hooks for hanging coats?
I don’t know about France, but at least in Italy, in the off-season, small luxury hotels are quite affordable, even in places like Venice. I never got anywhere near neo’s prices for New York.
I suspect that the need to charge six hundred to eight hundred dollars a night is a formula for the eventual end of the business. Apparently the wealthy ‘elite’ haven’t yet grasped that their partying has an expiration date. As what can’t go on, won’t go on. A reckoning has begun and if they manage to derail it, it will only make the final payment far more terrible. Yet they’ve proven to be far too full of hubris to remember John F Kennedy’s warning; “Those who make peaceful ‘revolution’ impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
We have had good luck with Airbnb. Will be spending about 200 a night (including fees) for a two bedroom apartment (with full kitchen, laundry and terrace) in Barcelona next month.
Shirehome and CV,
Thanks for the tips. I research on Trip Advisor and then try to book direct for the best price. TA has an AI feature that consolidates reviews which is a great timesaver.
I’m going to look at AirBnB for Paris as I’m traveling with family including two grandkids under 4.
I’m an AirBnB superhost myself in Hawaii but I’m worried about Paris scams!
Care to do a post on what ridiculous productions weddings have become?
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Wouldn’t wager in reference to nominal income levels that they’re any more expensive than they ever were.
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Still… One thing among many that hits you about the film The Best Years of Our Lives is the wedding scene at the end, as it was the coda of a film that was not stylized at all and devoted to portraying people getting through life. (It was set in 1946). The wedding takes place in the home of the groom’s parents, with a family member plinking on an upright piano. Among the guests is a couple having a brief discussion as to whether they should marry. The man says, “It’ll be years before we can get anywhere”; the woman says that’s fine with her. These are the sort who built the post-war world.
Where in nyc?
Long time reader from uws
When we visit New York, we always stay at The Jane Hotel: A beautiful early-20th-century building in the heart of the West Village, near the Highline and walkable everywhere. The building was originally a sailor’s “Rest Home”. And historic fun fact: It was used to host the survivors of the Titanic during the American inquiry into the disaster.
$149/night in a double room outside of summer. Fantastic value.
TheJaneNYC.com
A friend of ours is an investor/developer of the Moxy hotel chain. Apparently very modern and nice, around $250-$300/night. Tiny rooms, but good common areas (lobby, bar, etc.), I think aimed at a younger crowd.
My first and only experience in a NYC motel came in 8th grade. We sold magazine subscriptions in 7th and 8th grade to pay for our 8th grade class trip to NYC. We spent a night at the Piccadilly Hotel. Our 8th grade teacher told the class that if there were any traffic between the boys on one floor and the girls on another floor, there would be hell to pay–or an equivalent phrase. As we all feared her, we complied. On the return train, she told us how well we had behaved. 🙂
In subsequent trips to NYC I first stayed at relatives in the suburbs and then stayed with cousins who lived in SoHo.
A niece had her wedding in Italy. Say no more.(A New England cousin had transformed an ancestral home into a wedding venue. Not upscale enough..)
Those hotel prices remind me of what I paid in South America in the ’70s: average of about $1.50 a night. Call that $10-$15 a night in current dollars.
My parents got married at the base chapel. The ceremony was delayed for a couple of hours because a group men from the base on a hunting trip were killed in the crash of a light plane and all the chaplains were making notification and bereavement calls.
Visiting NYC on my own dime is no longer on my dance card. If someone I know who lives there provides accommodation, fine, I’ll go. Otherwise, no, not gonna happen.
I’d rather sleep on a sidewalk than pay $400 for a room.
My New York family don’t live farther south than Peekskill, so no plans to visit the city.
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The older I get the more I lack any interest in traveling anywhere.
I suspect the reason hotels don’t make grab bars standard is the same reason hooks have vanished from toilet stalls: kids try to hang from them and break them off. Also, pervs.
The VA installed my grab bars for which I am so grateful. Mesa Fire will do it also because they don’t want to pick you up out of the tub.
Hotels generally have designated rooms for the disabled that presumably have those bars. But you have to request such a room, which also will have a walk-in shower, etc.
I have made one trip to NYC (either 2003 or 2004), and don’t remember the room price, but since I shared with my mother and one of my sisters, it wasn’t too big a hit in the pocketbook.
We had gone to watch my youngest son’s HS orchestra play in one of the “fillers” for the concert hall – high schools auditioned to perform in what were probably “off peak” days and hours. The audience was mostly elderly folks who preferred going out in the afternoon, which suited me fine.
But it was Carnegie Hall, so who cared what time it was?
During one rehearsal, I visited with one of the techs back stage, who was responsible for providing the school with harps, as they didn’t really want to ship those on the airplane. That was my son’s instrument, which he took over from me and did much better on than I ever would.
I learned that the tech had scrounged around to get enough for them all, to the point of asking some local players to loan him their harps, including one that was brand new, because (he told me) they had never had an orchestra play there with five harpists.
Kind of neat to learn we were making history!
NYC was fabulous, of course, and we old folks got to tour while the young ‘uns rehearsed, although they did a few things, I think; we didn’t try and keep up with them.
That sounds like the hotel we used when we spent a night in NYC last September though it had much more expansive public spaces (which was good because we had to wait for our room to be ready). We were just coming off a cruise so the tight quarters weren’t too much of an issue, and we didn’t spend much time in the room since we were going to a play that evening. I picked the hotel for its proximity to the Shubert more than the price.
It really is not necessary to lodge in Manhattan at all. You can stay in a very normal hotel room in Jersey, on the west side of the Hudson River, you save hundreds of dollars per night.
The view of Manhattan is lovely. And so is the short ferry ride from Jersey to the heart of Manhattan. For example, Residence Inn – Weehawken. Trust me, I’ve done this. No, this isn’t an ad.
(Yes, this is one of the ferries that rescued the passengers from the commercial jet that “Sully” famously landed on the Hudson, and Clint Eastwood and Tom Hanks turned into a movie.)
(Yes, this is the Weehawken where Hamilton and Burr dueled.)