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Sleep Cheap in New YorkHigh-Quality Lodgings at Rock-Bottom RatesReviewed by Judy Colbert
Listings include the East Village Bed & Coffee in, natch, the East Village, at $60 a night (at the time the book was published in early 2002) for a single room with shared bath. If that’s too rich for your blood, there’s the American Dream Hostel in Gramercy Park, with a $29 tab for students in a dorm room ($40 for non-students). You won’t find the Omni Berkshire, Sheraton Times Square, or the Essex House in “Sleep Cheap,” but there are 141 lodgings from Staten Island to Brooklyn and Queens and lower Manhattan to the Bronx. You’ll also find some rooms that are in the $300 a night category as well as a business residence for women. Each property has a value rating of one to five stars with five stars being the best, for room price, guest services, cleanliness and appearance, in-room amenities, and security after two visits to each property. More than two-dozen of them fall into the all-around five-star rating. All the essentials are listed, including phone and fax number, email and web site (when available), rates, number of rooms, amenities, dining and bar options, clientele, guest services, parking, cancellation policy, and wheelchair accessibility. There’s also a description of the hotel, line drawings, maps, and photos by Desmond Shaw. Mullenneaux mentions some common sense tips about New York hotel-booking, including asking about street noise and nearby construction, parking fees (which cost more at some NY hotels these days than hotel rooms cost in other places), taxes (a hefty 13.25 percent plus a $2 per night occupancy charge), negotiation tactics, and phone charges. Listings are alphabetical within each geographic section, starting at Lower Manhattan and marching up the island and then the outer boroughs (a table of contents would have been nice, but it’s not essential). There are two indices, one an alphabetical listing and the other the type of lodging and value rating, so you can select from the type of property you want, whether full-service or Euro-style hotels. Each has the page number where the hotel description is. Certainly you should be able to find something in your price range so you can afford to go the TKTS booth and pick up a couple of half-price tickets for a Broadway show and still not bust your budget. Sleep Cheap in New York |
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TM
In early 2002 you could have had almost any hotel room
in New York for little more than a song. Some sense of normalcy has
returned, if you can call $300 and up a night for a hotel room normal. But,
there are bargains to be had in the Big Apple and if you’re looking for
them, Lisa Mullenneaux has come to your rescue. Her 312-page book is filled
with listings of hotels, bed-and-breakfast inns, hostels, short- and
long-term residences, and boutique hotels that are either extremely
affordable or provide a great value or both.