Life in a No-Star Hotel

I’ve just come back from a quick trip to hot, humid, hostile, rat-infested New York. Loved it.

While barely habitable, Manhattan offers the kind of twisted energy that makes a guy feel vibrant. Sort of like sitting on a modified electric chair.

Great cities are often deformed and unbearable but prosper due to the challenge they pose for those who prefer life on the brink. The constant fear of death and humiliation is acceptable as long as one lives near a nice French restaurant.

Unlike many from L.A., I am not offended by subway riders who slam me against the wall in a mad lunge for an empty seat. I smile when a waiter tosses my dinner tab on top of my last bite of blueberry pie.

But I will never again, no matter how impoverished I might be, stay in a no-star hotel. I’d rather pitch a tent in Central Park, where the life span of a visitor after dark is slightly less than that of a machine gunner in combat.

So I say never again to the Washington Jefferson Hotel.

I should have known that any room offered for $99 a night in Manhattan’s theater district was probably less than inviting. However, a hotel referral agency thought it adequate and a Web site photo shot at an unrevealing angle created an intriguing image of rustic charm, like one of those small places off the Rue de la Paix.

I checked it out on the Internet. Its Web site made the W-J sound as though James Dean had stayed there when he was kicking around Hell’s Kitchen, looking cool. While no four-star recommendation, it at least added name recognition to the pitch.

So we said, “Let’s give it a try.” I think Henry Ford said the same thing when he approved production of the Edsel.

*

To begin with, yelling is generally at a minimum in hotels that make an effort to attract patrons. As our taxi stopped before the W-J, an angry face appeared at a window of the building and a voice roared, “Get away from there! You can’t park there!”

The driver, who had obviously done this before, shouted back, “Go to hell!,” tossed our luggage onto the sidewalk and sped off. My wife, Cinelli, was with me. She looked at the luggage and at the weathered exterior of the W-J and said, “Uh-oh.”

The lobby was a tattered enclosure that had absolutely nothing in common with any hotel I have ever stayed in. The desk clerk seemed to resent both our presence and the need to move and speak. We speculated later that he may have suffered from the psychological effects of too much heat and humidity.

“He’s probably happier in the spring,” Cinelli whispered when he informed us angrily that we were too early, our room wasn’t ready and we were to get out and come back later. All of this while another hotel employee stood watch by the window, shouting periodically, “Get away, you can’t park there!”

As we left, a sallow-faced youth in worn jeans (the bellman?) stored our luggage in a lobby closet jammed with old boxes and mops. As he walked by the front desk, the clerk said, “Go shower, you stink.”

*

After a breakfast of lukewarm eggs and cold potatoes at Beafsteak Charlie’s down the block, we returned to the desk clerk hollering into the phone wanting to know if Room 267 was ready, while his assistant hollered out the window not to park there.

Cinelli, who tries to put a cheerful spin on the most dire of circumstances, said, “Think of it as an adventure!” I said, “I came here to make a book deal, not to conquer the Matto Grosso.”

I noticed that her cheerful demeanor faded somewhat as we dragged our luggage down a narrow hallway toward our room and saw that the corridor was lined with separate bathrooms. I could hear her thoughts: Please, God, not a toilet-down-the-hall hotel!

As it turned out, we did have a bathroom, which was about as big as the top of my desk, with barely enough room to stand, much less sit. No fancy little baskets containing shampoo and body lotions. Two towels. One soap. It was a room. Period. The sleeping area was only slightly larger. I felt as though I were staying in the County Jail.

“It’s very clean,” Cinelli said. Then she paused and added somewhat wistfully, “But I’m finding it difficult to believe that James Dean ever stayed here.”

We left New York with the face at the window shouting at our taxi driver and arrived back in quiet, dull Riordonville, instantly missing the energy that drives Manhattan, but grateful for our own bathroom.

I probably won’t stay at the Plaza the next time I’m there, but I’ll make damned sure there’s at least one star attached to the hotel name and that no one in the lobby stinks, even if I have to smell them all.

*

Al Martinez’s column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. He can be reached online at al.martinez@latimes.com.