HotelChatter

Check-In:
Oh Jane, we had such high hopes for you as we walked down the cobbled street, looking at would-be Carrie Bradshaws reading books on their stoops, up the sweeping stone staircase and into the exotic lobby, with tiled walls, various animal heads swinging from the rooftops and the check in staff dolled up in maroon uniforms with those cute little bellboy caps.

Our hopes were even higher when they gave us our room key at 8am (we’d just come off a red eye and expected to have to store our stuff.) They were so friendly that as we got in the creaky old elevator (which comes with its own operator) we were thinking, "Ha! A classic New York experience for $89! Go us!"

And then we got to our room of doom: number 348.

Room Reaction:
We couldn’t get into our room initially because the key hadn’t been activated properly, but the nice elevator operator came out, opened our room up with his masterkey, and went back down to get us a new one. What a gent! That left us time to survey our new domain.

We knew the cabins were tiny – we’d seen the video the first time HotelChatter checked in - but even so, you don’t quite fathom the tininess until you are in there. When we first walked in, we actually laughed at how miniscule it was – it’s literally a single bed (which takes up the length of the room) with a shelf at the end, and two feet of space alongside the bed before you hit the opposite wall.

The design is good, considering – under the bed there are two drawers (and a safe) and a space for a large suitcase, as well as a shelf above the bed. There’s a hook on the back of the door for your towels, the bed has a headboard on two sides so you can use it as a couch, and the wall opposite the bed is one big mirror, to make things feel less cramped.

There’s no cupboard space, but if you happen to have brought your own hangers, there are at least hooks on the walls. Overall, apart from the massive fail below, the design is pretty natty – although if you’re over 5’10” you won’t fit the bed.

You’re provided with two small towels, a too-short bathrobe and slippers for those bathroom treks (note: there are no sinks in the rooms).

The problem was the upkeep. The headboard had grease stains all over it, the carpet didn’t look clean, the mattress had protruding springs, and it stank (see “The Tenant Situation” below). The view was dismal – our teeny window looked across at another teeny window, blocked with newspaper six feet away, and we couldn’t see the sky.

The smoke alarm was broken (the casing was on our bed when we arrived) – we had to ask four times for it to be repaired, and 24 hours into our stay, nothing had been done. The soundproofing is appalling – we could hear our neighbor’s TV like it was our own, and we kept being woken by people walking by in the middle of the night – we only got three hours sleep, despite necking two sleeping pills in an attempt to get some zzz.

Massive Design Fail
There was a 2-3in gap between the bed (which was fixed) and the wall. Our phone promptly fell down said gap and as the bed was four feet high, we couldn’t retrieve it. We enlisted a member of staff who tried to get it with a clothes-hanger, failed, and finally managed to get hold of it by sprawling all over our clean sheets and shoving a broom handle down the side.

While down there, he also found a remote control and various other odds and sods (like the post-coital collection pictured above). He only removed the remote, though. Perhaps he thought the condom wrapper gave a frisson to the room, or maybe he left it as a monument to the bravery of whoever dared to get busy in a place less roomy and distinctly less salubrious than a toilet cubicle.

Oh, and when he'd finished, he asked if we'd like a clean sheet that he hadn't draped himself over. We said yes, and he ran out, came back and handed one over. Yes, at The Jane, it seems, you make your own bed.

Communal Bathrooms
There were 51 cabins on our floor, and between us we shared three showers, three basins and five toilets (split into two blocks). And it wasn’t actually as bad as it sounds. The bathrooms were well designed (every toilet or shower is shut off with a full door), there were rain shower heads (nicer than the Soho Grand, where we decamped to the next day) and marble fittings in the sink.

Considering the volume of people using them, they were kept pretty clean and they were pretty wait-free – in the morning we got in the shower without a problem, but came out to find three men waiting for us.

That’s the weird thing about the bathrooms – it might have been nice to make one block female and one block male. It feels odd brushing your teeth next to a 18-year-old German skateboarder, but at least everyone takes the toilets-on-a-plane approach – ie utterly ignoring the other people around you.

The Tenant Situation
Of the 51 cabins on our floor, 12 were occupied by tenants. According to the hotel staff, there are about 30 tenants remaining (over five floors of the hotel). Obviously this is a pretty sensitive subject and we feel bad saying this but the fact is that the entire third floor stank because of a couple of the tenants obviously had never availed themselves of the rain showers.

And it’s all very well holding your breath as you run to the bathroom to avoid gagging, but because the cabins are so confined, that smell permeates the entire floor, including your own cabin and your clothes. We turned up to a business meeting the next day, realizing that even though we showered an hour earlier and had on fresh clothes, we “smelled of Jane”. Gross.

Also, although smoking is barred here, some of the tenants smoke and the hotel staff say they can’t do anything about it. Us, we couldn’t smell any ciggies through the fug of crusty BO.

They’re not all heinous, obviously – we were next door to a guy who didn’t smell, just left his door open and stared at us every time we crossed paths (we said hello, he didn’t reply). And we had an encounter with a super-gentlemanly tenant in the elevator. But the smell situation on the third floor was seriously unacceptable. We’re surprised the hotel dares to rent the cabins either side of the stinkbombs.

But as we learned at check out, there are no tenants on the sixth floor so if you claim asthma and ask for a non-smoking room on the sixth floor, you can escape that problem.

Amenity Madness:
There’s meant to be water in the room but there was none in ours. Toiletries come in communal vats inside the bathrooms – shampoo, conditioner and body wash in the showers.

Internet Connect:
Free WiFi (no password needed) throughout the hotel. However there was no cellphone reception in our room at all. The only spot we picked up any bars in the hotel was by sticking our arm out the window of one of the bathrooms.

Dining Scene:
There’s the trendy Café Gitane on the ground floor (it also does room service) but being disgusted by our room, we didn’t fancy eating food prepared there.

What We Liked:
The entrance, the location, and the jolly (if slightly ineffective) staff.

What We Didn't Like:
The tiny, dirty, stinky room. It very nearly broke us. In fact, it was only the hilarity of the condom wrapper under the bed which saved our sanity. And that, on reflection, was probably hysteria.

Bottom Line:
We paid $89 for the room ($105 including tax) and we can honestly say it was $89 too much. Yes, of course New York is expensive, but when you can get this for $159, there’s really no reason to book The Jane. We’re by no means hotel snobs, we’re more than used to communal bathrooms, tiny rooms, and the odd speck of dirt, but this took the pale. Never have we checked out of a hotel early. Never, never again*.

*No, not even in the Captain's Cabins, now that we've been so thoroughly disgusted by the third floor.