Being a budget traveler I'm not a demanding person when it comes to a place to stay abroad. A roof over my head and a bed in a hostel or an inn will do. I even spent time in a cabin with only a matrass and sheet once, which was actually quite fun and adventurous.
Staying at the New York Inn however, gave me a whole new perspective on the concept of lodging, I didn't new existed before.
Going to New York for the fourth time, now in winter, we thought: Why not spend a little more money this time for a good hotel? Something more luxurious. Something with a private bath. After all: it's freezing cold in february. So we paid the (for us) extraordinary amount of 100 dollars a night for wat we thought would be a decent hotel (according to the pictures on the hilarious website that is). And so, good citizens as we were, we payed in advance for the whole 8 nights.
The first night I couldn't sleep at all; lying in my bed shivering from the freezing cold. Outside it was freezing atleast 10 degrees Celcius, and there was a hole in the window. There was some heater sort of thing in the room, but it only blew out more cold air and it made the noise of a nuclear reactor. Needless to say that the next day I was ill: cold/flu, wich lasted my entire 'holiday'. I can assure you that wandering around New York with a headache, sore throat, dripping nose and aching mucles puts quite a bummer on the experience.
Warming up with coffee didn't help either; 'breakfast' was available in de fastfood restaurant downstairs, were goods were being delivered with doors open constantly.
As it is said in the review under: our private bathroom was a joke. One square meter fitts all; brushing your teeth with one foot in the shower (in a very awkward position I must say).
Taking a shower was hell. First half an hour waiting for hot water, then burnmarks from boiling water. There was no escape from it, since the shower was about 50 centimeters square, so running away from burnmarks meant tumbling over the toilet, hence more bruises. In the next coupple of days I learned to take showers in 20 seconds tops. And to jump from shower right into bed, since the carpet in the room was soaked every day.
The bedding was horrendous; all sorts of undefinable stains, both on the syntetic bedspread and sheets, which were by the way never changed during our entire 8 nights stay.
There was just one electrical plug, so one had to chose between watching telly, put on the heater/freezer or read by the bedlamp.
The last day of our 'holiday' my husband had serious foodpoisening, which nearly forced us to stay in our room. We decided differently: after throwing up several times, we went to the nearist ABC cinema, were we had a good nights rest in comfy warm seats. I'm afraid I haven't seen much of Clint Estwood's Letters from Iwo Jima, but wat a night it was!
I read in the reviews below that lots of people, so appaled by the New York Inn, immediately left, taking there financial loss for granted. We could't afford that.
Wat troubles me most, reading all this, is that these people who run this infested hole, make even more money, by doing a bad job. After all: the rooms that are prebooked, payed and left, can be sold again and again and again to defenseless travelers from all over the world. These conmen collect twice the roomrate on atleast half of their rooms.
The city of New York should not only sent health inspection over there; I seriously think they should sent (tourist)police over there.
hotel reviews