So, Marty is going to play at the CD release party for a record he produced (nice guy, I’ve met him and his wife, had dinner at his place once) and it’s going to be in New York. This started in June, his talking about it and planning for me and H.o.p. to go with him, because for the first time ever we actually got to see New York last December and loved it (we’d been there before but it was while touring and you can’t see anything while touring). Marty had been told rooms were to be booked at a hotel not too far from Central Park which meant that during the two days Marty was playing (there were to be two gigs) H.o.p. and I would be able to stroll the museums and this sounded great, this sounded wonderful, and it didn’t sound Too Good To Be True at all because, hell, I’ve hit the point in my life where I wouldn’t have it any other way after decades of doing my time in flea pits.
Except it did sound too good to be true, which was why I kept asking for the name of said hotel near Central Park, but Marty couldn’t tell me, he didn’t know, and was finally exasperated with me because I seemed not to trust the situation would unfold as described. Because I basically don’t trust anything to unfold as described until you’re there and find that things are as described.
Things do change, they always do in this world. The bookings changed and after two months of being told it Was Happening, then suddenly this nice vacation H.o.p. and I had been looking forward to all summer (a summer bogged down with work, which is a good thing!) had dematerialized, then was materialized again within a few days, just later in September.
Last night Marty comes home and he tells me he learned the rooms have been booked.
Only the hotel is in Brooklyn.
But it’s a new hotel in Brooklyn. OK? Yeah, the National One Star Brand Name Chain may not sound hopeful but it’s new. He went to check a place with reviews and it’s new. And clean.
Yeah, right, I’m thinking. Who gave it the review touting it was new and clean, which means “at least it’s new and clean”? The manager of the hotel?
“Is it near the subway?” I asked.
Oh yes, it’s near the subway. A couple of blocks, Marty said.
“Where is it in Brooklyn?” I asked, making my way to the internet.
Marty said he didn’t know.
“WHERE is it in Brooklyn?” I said. “What’s the address?”
Marty gave me the address and said sorry he thought I meant like “Where was it?” and he didn’t know that but he did know the address.
You see, I am all too familiar with this. Unless it’s a decent name and in a too-good-to-believe locale then the hotel (or motel) when you get there it will be filthy and in the middle of an industrial wasteland or miles of auto parts stores in an area with no foot traffic and to get to a remote bus will mean risking your life with a run across at least one major highway from hell. And opportunity to see some sites will turn out to be too far from anything to get around to anything but the gig and then straight back to the hotel because even stopping at a Wendy’s in that area of town just looks too scary. And the motel has bullet proof glass surrounding what is ironically called the welcome desk and I bravely wrap my arms around my child on the elevator while the drug dealer or pimp who whatever he is pulls out thousands of dollars and slowly counts it all on the elevator in front of me, I Don’t Know Why And I’m Not Going To Ask Why Either.
And you lock yourself in your room and decide it’s wise not to go get ice and you sleep with your clothes on and try to levitate above the bed (damn difficult).
I look up, on Googlemaps, the address Marty has given me. Standing behind me as I go to street view, he again reassures, “I read it was new. New and clean.”
“You say it is just two blocks from the subway?” I say. “And that it has parking??”
“Yes.”
Street view shows National One Star Brand Name Chain hotel, in Brooklyn, located across from a lumber yard. Next door is an auto parts store. Down the way is an auto parts store. Down the way is more urban waste land and scary looking places and auto parts stores and lumber yards and a church with a BIG PROTECTION FENCE around it, not just quaint decoration, no, it’s decidedly undecorative. And there’s lots of what looks like free parking in the area, an alarming amount of free and empty parking considering, and the cars that are visible look like they may have been parked free for at least a decade, maybe because shopping carts for your garbage bags are the preferable mode of transportation. Not that I have anything against this–you do what you gotta do and you never know but one day I may be one of those individuals with the shopping cart (please be kind to me, I was a loving mother and wife and did more than my share of volunteer work), though not around here. We live a hop, skip and jump from our own city’s homeless hub, but here they have the outside of the grocery stores rigged up so that if you try to walk a shopping cart out of the lot it locks up. Because otherwise there’d be no shopping carts left.
Damn, I feel like a snot. But I don’t wanna leave my small urban apartment with its non-views (but which is just a short walk from the subway) and go for a short vacation in New York and stay in Brooklyn stuffed between an auto parts store and a muffler shop, overlooking a lumber yard. No! No!
“That must be the parking lot,” Marty says of the spacious and nearly empty lot next to the hotel. Which will turn out not to be the parking lot for the hotel. It’s the parking lot for an auto parts store. No, the motel has 12 parking spaces, those spaces lining the front, unfenced, no lot, smack dab right on the street almost.
12 parking spaces means only a handful of the guests better have autos.
I look up a review for said hotel, which Marty says he did already that afternoon and that it has free parking (we would be driving up) and that it’s NEW and CLEAN!
I first notice that it’s not recommended for families with children or teenagers…or really just about anybody.
A couple reviews do say it’s clean. CLEAN! The first review says CLEAN, which turns out to be the review Marty glanced at but didn’t go past the fold and read the whole piece. That first review, which gives the hotel a healthy amount of stars because it’s WAY CHEAP, is from a person who (past the fold) reveals they used to live in Hell’s Kitchen and lists as a caveat that even he wouldn’t go out of the hotel after dark because it’s a scary part of town. But it’s CHEAP!
Further down there are several reviews noting it’s not clean at all. In fact some people had to deal with condom wrappers on the side of the bed and food crumbs. And there are ants. And it seems the bathrooms could use a lot of attention according to that review and several others.
The reception desk is barricaded from you with bulletproof glass.
More reviews talking about how You Do Not Want To Go Out After Dark!! Don’t Do It! When you book into the hotel you are not only told you park at your own risk (if you are lucky enough to get one of the 12 free parking places in front), but you are given a security sheet telling you how to best protect yourself in their hotel in order to assure yourself a safe stay.
It’s new but the ceiling emergency sprinklers are covered with tape and the smoke alarms need batteries.
The subway is maybe five minutes away by bus or a ten minute hike and then a thirty minute subway ride into New York. Which isn’t bad, y’know. Except you’re in a neighborhood where you Can’t Go Out After Dark and H.o.p. and I would be Out After Dark.
I do some more research because I know I don’t have the whole story yet. The subway’s closest station, Crown Heights, is located around 11 blocks and a highway away. The first search result for the station brings up a 5 p.m. rush hour shooting last spring (OK, we have shootings around here, whatever), maybe or maybe not coincident with a flare-up of racial tension I read about that also occurred last spring. I check the other search results, people asking for advice on whether it’s a safe area to ride the train or live. “S***hole” is one response. No foot traffic there. Do not go out after dark because of hood elements everyone says, unfailingly. Do not go out after dark. During the day there’s not much foot traffic but after dark there is none, you can travel miles and see no foot traffic. Do not go out after dark.
I traveled like this for years, before H.o.p. I called it Local Ambiance.
I ended up traveling like this a few times after H.o.p. was born and I called it Not Conducive For A Good Time With Child.
Actually, if the hotel was within a couple blocks of the station then I’d say OK to it all. The area around the station doesn’t look bad in street view. Shops and brownstones and people out and about. But the area around the hotel, about a mile away?–it’s a wasteland.
Marty said, yes, it didn’t look good, we should forget the whole thing, H.o.p. and I should stay home and instead of driving up he’ll just call and get them to book a flight for him (even though he does what he can to avoid flying because it hurts his ears).
He was disappointed. He had even looked up the hotel reviews and seen “clean and new” in a prominent review and was satisfied and that was that and he returned to his busy schedule at the studio. He’s just not as well…I don’t know…he’s just not as fried and cynical and circumspect as I am. He didn’t go to Googlemaps Street View.
Damn, I feel like a wretched ungrateful snot who’s gotten too big for her boots. But I don’t wanna leave my small urban apartment with its non-views (but which is just a short walk from the subway) and go to New York for a short vacation and stay in Brooklyn stuffed between an auto parts store and a muffler shop, overlooking a lumber yard, in an area where everyone says, “Don’t go out after dark!” No! No! I don’t want the reception desk wrapped in bulletproof glass and I don’t want them to hand me a sheet on how to stay safe in the hotel and I don’t want taped over sprinklers and condom wrappers and ants and crumbs littering the room. I want…I dunno…I want…I want to go back to the hotel and have a relaxing night’s sleep. I don’t want to worry about getting out of Manhattan and back to the hotel before dark. I don’t want to lie there and think, “Damn, this is a s*** hole.”
I get up in the morning and Marty’s already gone and I call him. He was in the process of trying to find a place that can replace the glass in the passenger’s side of the car because someone broke the window and ransacked the glove compartment and took the phone recharger and iPod dock and for some reason also stole Marty’s glasses which he’d left in an overhead compartment. We never leave anything in the car so there was no visible enticement, but…whatever. Marty called the police and waited 45 minutes and they didn’t show, they never show. He called again and was told they hadn’t been dispatched. And he had to go ahead and get to work and on the way, just one block distant, he saw five cops sitting around chatting.
The glass place we use (you see, we’ve had this happen several times before) said they couldn’t get the glass until Monday.
By now I was apparently yelling over the phone. I thought I was just being emphatic about how we really needed to replace that glass because I don’t want anyone camping out in our car over the weekend, which is what would happen if we just made do with plastic. It would be ripped aside and our car would become someone’s weekend home.
“Stop yelling,” Marty said.
I’m becoming a shrill fish wife.
How’s that for fun? Damn.
Anyway, Marty spoke to his brother, who lives in Queens and works in New York, and he says he can find us a good and not too expensive place to stay in Midtown Manhattan, so we may be going up in October. Which H.o.p. is really going to love, if we do it. He’s crazy about New York. New York is his place. He finds New York wonderfully exciting. He’s had a taste of the really big city and that’s all she wrote.
