BootsnAll Travel Community

This is the time of year when my husband and I usually take a few days in New York City, except we're currently saving for a Christmas trip to Germany, which precludes paying NYC hotel rates for a while. In lieu of traveling there, I found a copy of Arthur Frommer's "New York on 5 Dollars a Day" from 1961, which was donated to our library's booksale (and was being discarded for perceived lack of salability). I've been fooling around with this moldy oldie, using the reverse address search on whitepages.com to see if any of the hotels are still around. Many have gone condo, especially those around Gramercy Park, but a few still exist. Here's the 1961 review of what is now Comfort Inn Chelsea:

"Finally, for single and intrepid men in the Murray Hill area, the establishment to patronize is the earthy Arlington Hotel, 18 West 25th St. (phone WAtkins 9-8960). Single rooms without bath are $1.75 a night (but there are only a limited quantity of these, so write well in advance); ordinary doubles are $4.20, and doubles with private bath are $6.30. A large part of the clientele consists of permanent residents, and a more interesting group -- straight out of Damon Runyan -- would be hard to find. We do not recommend the Arlington for young ladies, but we have no hesitancy in touting its comfortable rooms for adventurous men or couples."

I note here that rooms at the Comfort Inn Chelsea start at $260/night. However, single and intrepid men are in no short supply in the area.