A Jew in the Big Apple

I’m in NY.  I’m staying at the Hudson Hotel, a supposedly hip spot, judging by all the young, beautiful people in the lobby and bars. I’m sure the bars are great. It’s the rooms that suck. From what I understand, this was a women’s dormitory or something before the Morgans Hotel Group turned it into a hotel. They didn’t put a lot of effort into renovating the dorms into hotel rooms.

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The rooms are smaller than a typical train compartment (the hotel prefers to say they’re "reminiscent of a private cabin on an upscale yacht." More like a fishing trawler). The wobbly steel writing desk, which is about the width of a Time Magazine, and matching steel chair, harder on the ass than a bus bench, appear to have been stripped from a prison cell.  Actually, a prison cell is  more sensibly designed than this room.  No amount of dark woods, mirrors, and pin-point halogens can hide the fact that this room is the size of a Camry.

The room is slightly wider than the low, Queen-size bed that dominates the space. The space can barely accomodate one average-sized person. The bathroom has plexiglass walls, which are covered with a thin, transparent curtain. So if you like privacy while you’re on the toilet, forget about it. If you do sit on the toilet, your knees will hit the wall and you’ll think back fondly on the spacious lavatory on the plane.

There isn’t a single drawer in the room, just an open "closet" in front of the door that isn’t large enough to fit a suitcase and that only has three hangers. There are no ice bucket in the room because there’s no space for one. The tiny TV set is in a narrow cupboard, gets no reception, and makes my laptop screen seem huge. The heater gurgles and whines (even when its off), has two settings (freezing cold and blisteringly hot) and is conveniently located behind the headboard. The walls are so thin, when the guy next door called his wife on the phone, I was able to say hello to her.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is an upscale place.  With luck, this will be my first — and last — night in this hotel.

18 thoughts on “A Jew in the Big Apple”

  1. Is it at least cheap? Under certain circumstances where I just need a place to sleep and little else, I’m willing to crash in one of those Japanese tube thingies if the price is right.

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  2. Shecanfilmit – funny, but that’s exactly what I was going to say!
    As for NYC hotels, I’ve no idea where anything is in relation to anything else, but my former company put me up at the Marriott Marquis Times Square, which had plenty of space and standard amenities.

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  3. And all that ‘Cheap Chic’ as they advertise for a mere $339 bucks for a double. Plus state and local taxes.
    Loved this line:
    Bedside lamps with allegorical images designed by renowned painter Francesco Clemente lend a spirit of dreamlike fantasy to the room.
    That’s so you can feel artistic while you get ripped off. Hand me a Best Western any day over places like this.
    Do they automatically wash your sheets and towels? Or were you given the option of saving water, the environment and their operating costs by failing to specifically tell them: WASH THE SHEETS AND TOWELS?

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  4. I once stayed in a “Holiday Inn Jr.” It was a series of trailers rolled in, much like a trailer park, but since the “wings” had an internal hallway, the rooms were small enough to just about touch all four walls from the bed… I imagine jail cells are more spacious than the offerings our field trip had on that night.

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  5. Hang around. Soon you’ll realize that’s a palacial place which could easily house three families. It took me three years to figure that out about my one bedroom apartment there.
    Ah, but you’re supposed to be overcome with the sheer wonder of being in “The Big Apple.”
    What?
    You’re not?
    I wasn’t either, but I had to stay there for three years. At least you can come home sooner than that.
    Oh, and the RAF Club in London (right across the park from Buckingham Palace, so that was a plus) is essentially the same as you described, except they only have room for a twin bed. I was lucky when I stayed there–I had a room with a bathroom–shower only. Some rooms had to use facilities down the hall.
    Have a safe trip home.

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  6. That sounds an awful lot like a hotel room I stayed in while I was visiting Chicago. I was up there to check out Loyola and my mom and I ended up at this little hotel across the river from the Chicago Sun Times building. It wasn’t really fun in the morning when we were both attempting to be in the bathroom.

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  7. I’m not paying for it USA/NBC is. But I complained at the front desk this morning (I couldn’t sleep last night — not with the whine, thump and groan of the heater and the whine, thump and groan of the couple having sex next door). They moved me to the top floor. Same size room, but at least it’s quiet.

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  8. The room was so small the mice had rounded shoulders. The room was so small I dropped my toupee and had wall-to-wall carpeting. The room was so small that the bed’s headboard was shaped like a tombstone. The room was so small…

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