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Room With an Anti-View: Chicago's Essex Inn

Where: 800 S Michigan Ave [map], Chicago, IL, United States, 60605

You know the scene. You open the door to your brand new hotel room, run over to the window, open the blinds and bam, you are hit with the anti-view. Maybe you are looking down a dirty alley, witnessing a drug deal, staring at an air shaft in the face, or seeing a brick wall. Whatever you are viewing it is not extremely pleasurable. Help out your fellow hotel mavens by uploading your anti-views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number with the not-so-easy-on-the-eyes view.

How's this for a suspicious advertising tag line: "Spend less on the room and more on the town". We get it: this hotel won't break your budget, but perhaps it's also not the best place in town.

This slogan belongs to the Essex Inn in Chicago and we now know one of the reasons why the hotel's cheaper than a big night out. It's because of this very unappealing anti-view.

If we had the option of sitting in our hotel room and staring out at this unattractive view, or heading out on the town, we'd definitely take the latter--ain't it lucky we'll (apparently) have enough money left over to do that. Of course, we're slightly grateful that the bottom half of the anti-view includes environmentally-friendly solar panels, which redeems it all just a tiny bit.

Ironically, the Essex Inn also offers a "Room with a View" package starting from $149: the view doesn't come from the room, but from the Sears Tower Skydeck! They throw in two tickets with your room. Clever.

[Photo: kacleaveland]