Without More Tourists, City Hotels Can’t Bring Back All Their Furloughed Staffers (rent, crime)
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I work and live in Midtown and nope. The tourists are sparse and the hotels... they don't look like they're doing too well. Maybe, by September when B'way opens back up (unless the delta virus causes things to shut down again, I hope not!), things will improve.
Afternoon tea at the Plaza Hotel on Central Park South is an elegant affair. Guests sit under the stained glass dome of the Palm Court, with its crystal chandeliers and real live palm trees.
But the crowd is small. On a Monday afternoon, just about 30 people were seated in a room that can fit 300. Food and beverage manager Emma Pickard said guests can still have a Plaza experience, with “scones, sandwiches and pastries.” Some tables also have bags of cotton candy.
“That's our very famous Eloise tea,” Pickard explains, referring to the Plaza’s famous fictional resident. “That's served with pink lemonade cotton candy for the kids.”
Midtown hotels are just about done. I used to work in one.
They can’t make union people get vaccines and not sure how they will charge $500 a night anymore.
Also the corporate crowd is not that eager to start doing bank meetings when they can do the same over zoom for pennies. I’ve been managing the zoom webinars/streams for some time now and from I see there is a 50/50 split. Some would like to get back to normal and some like this new format. Some miss the travel and being away from home and family and there are some who are happy to be home closer to kids and having more personal time.
Dirty little secrets and insider information will still be shared over a steak, but the regular travel around the country showcasing companies earnings are a thing of a past waste of time and money.
As for tourism, unless things get cleaned up and safe and hotels give major discounts, I don’t see things going back any time soon.
If I owned a hotel I would try to convert it to an SRO, in these times you'll make more money that way. However I believe conversion is a long process.
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"The man who sleeps on the floor, can never fall out of bed." -Martin Lawrence
If I owned a hotel I would try to convert it to an SRO, in these times you'll make more money that way. However I believe conversion is a long process.
Single room occpancy hotels are illegal in NYS/NYC, and have been so for decades. They were simply zoned out of existence. Only things that remain are those which existed prior to changes and new laws.
Reason why you see so many homeless on UWS, Harlem and west side in general for that matter (Chelsea through Hell's Kitchen right up through Harlem and points north), is that there still are many SRO (or residence) hotels in those areas.
This ban on SRO and residence hotels is also why NYC is lone among many world class cities that does not have hostels except under certain circumstances.
Single room occpancy hotels are illegal in NYS/NYC, and have been so for decades. They were simply zoned out of existence. Only things that remain are those which existed prior to changes and new laws.
Reason why you see so many homeless on UWS, Harlem and west side in general for that matter (Chelsea through Hell's Kitchen right up through Harlem and points north), is that there still are many SRO (or residence) hotels in those areas.
This ban on SRO and residence hotels is also why NYC is lone among many world class cities that does not have hostels except under certain circumstances.
As to the last link, a hostel is not the same as an SRO. A hostel by definition is just a place where you rent a bunch of beds. I can have a room with 5 beds in it, and rent out the beds, that's a hostel. An SRO is where a single room by itself is rented. I'm going to read some more about it however.
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"The man who sleeps on the floor, can never fall out of bed." -Martin Lawrence
As to the last link, a hostel is not the same as an SRO. A hostel by definition is just a place where you rent a bunch of beds. I can have a room with 5 beds in it, and rent out the beds, that's a hostel. An SRO is where a single room by itself is rented. I'm going to read some more about it however.
I know the difference between a hostel and SRO, thank you.
Same laws that make new hostels illegal also ban new SRO hotels.
"The NYC Administrative Code (Admin. Code) §27-2077(a) states, “no rooming unit which was not classified…prior to May fifteenth, nineteen hundred fifty-six, shall be created in any dwelling, whether such conversion is effected with or without physical alterations.”
This is same code referenced in final link of previous post.
"The NYC Administrative Code (Admin. Code) §27-2077(a) states, “no rooming unit which was not classified…prior to May fifteenth, nineteen hundred fifty-six, shall be created in any dwelling, whether such conversion is effected with or without physical alterations.”
This is same code referenced in final link of previous post.
What a travesty
__________________
"The man who sleeps on the floor, can never fall out of bed." -Martin Lawrence
"The NYC Administrative Code (Admin. Code) §27-2077(a) states, “no rooming unit which was not classified…prior to May fifteenth, nineteen hundred fifty-six, shall be created in any dwelling, whether such conversion is effected with or without physical alterations.”
This is same code referenced in final link of previous post.
I don't think I understand that, Bugs. My friend lived in an SRO on west 86th street for years in the late 70s. Maybe it was classified as a hotel? I also spent some time (brief thank god) in an SRO in the east 30s in the 80s. Maybe also classified officially as a hotel?
I don't see the difference. These were single room occupancy rooms, bring your own hot plate and make sure the door locked .
ETA: bottom line, they kept each of us from being on the street, which is to 7th's point.
I work and live in Midtown and nope. The tourists are sparse and the hotels... they don't look like they're doing too well. Maybe, by September when B'way opens back up (unless the delta virus causes things to shut down again, I hope not!), things will improve.
Afternoon tea at the Plaza Hotel on Central Park South is an elegant affair. Guests sit under the stained glass dome of the Palm Court, with its crystal chandeliers and real live palm trees.
But the crowd is small. On a Monday afternoon, just about 30 people were seated in a room that can fit 300. Food and beverage manager Emma Pickard said guests can still have a Plaza experience, with “scones, sandwiches and pastries.” Some tables also have bags of cotton candy.
“That's our very famous Eloise tea,” Pickard explains, referring to the Plaza’s famous fictional resident. “That's served with pink lemonade cotton candy for the kids.”
It is cumbersome to travel from abroad into the US, and it will be so until the requirement for Covid testing within 3 days prior to travel is abolished for vaccinated people. You buy the plane ticket, make hotel reservations, probably more tickets and reservations in the US (since people rarely travel overseas to visit just one place) - then you turn out to have the positive PCR test two days before departure (likely of no significance if you are vaccinated and asymptomatic)... and then what? All the cancellations (if they are even possible), the lost money and time.
Also, both the domestic and international tourists know about stabbings on the subway and in the streets, and shootings in Times Square. Not a real tourist attraction.
The US will need to abolish testing requirement for vaccinated people with no symptoms, and NYC will need to advertise some potentially effective anti-crime measures, before tourists return to NYC in any real numbers. Chinese tourists are probably lost for the next decade at least. They now want to visit major US cities about as much as American tourists want to visit Kabul or Baghdad.
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