We checked into The Independent for the weekend and liked it quite a lot, but would not rate it as a 5 star hotel or experience. The room was a nice size and certainly comfortable but didn't really have any of the special features I had read about on the website such as a fireplace in the room or a nice bathtub or interesting furniture or anything that really was unique. The bathroom was large but only had a shower. The windows to the rooms were painted shut, which was annoying. Also the building is on a semi main street and close to a major road it seems for getting out of the city (heading to the highway), which is 13th street.
The most disturbing thing about our stay was how we were greeted, which was not in a friendly way. We took the elevator up to reception with our suitcases, found no one at the desk, but overheard an animated conversation. A woman got up and we clearly felt as if we were interrupting her and she said to us, "Can I help you with something?" in a quick annoyed kind of manner as if we were bothering her. It was not the greeting I expected especially as there would be little else we would be doing in "reception" with luggage than checking in or inquiring about a place to say if we didn't have a reservation (but we did). There was then some confusion about the cost of the room and again the woman who greeted us was not super friendly but instead said "well, if there's a problem take it up with the manager." Of course the manager wasn't around. It turned out to be a misunderstanding about how they calculated the cost, but I felt that the person should have been more polite.
Once we settled in though we ended up really liking our stay. The location is nice and the other staff people we very nice. One is a college student who works most weekends and she was great. First impressions are lasting though so this hotel definitely needs to work on its greeting; we were put off and didn't feel that we'd made the right choice initially. This could have been avoided simply by having a politeness policy for greeting guests.
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