Occasionally, you get to look back on some of the sketchier decisions you’ve made and let yourself give out with a major ‘phew’. For me, one such instance was spending a couple of days in a 50 cents a night hotel in Turkey.
This was, indeed, many long years ago.
Still, even in 1973, 50 cents a night was not exactly pricey. (It translates into about $2.50 by today’s standards.)
What did that 50 cents buy us?
A room that looked like something out of Camus’ Algeria: smoke-stained stucco walls, a languid fan, a bed with coiled spring and a thin and ancient mattress, a pair of communal clogs (if you were willing to slip your feet into them), lights that were turned off at 10 p.m., and a toilet in the hall. (The communal clogs were what you were supposed to put on to walk to the communal toilet in the hall.) The communal toilet in the hall was of the hole in the floor variety, with the hole in the floor surrounded by a porcelain tray that featured treads for comfortably standing or squatting on. The most interesting feature of the toilet in the hall was that, like the room lights, the water was turned off at 10 p.m. There was, however, a metal poker that you could use to poke and prod your personal effluent, as well as that of the other strangers staying on your floor, far enough down the hole to make some room.
Fortunately, my friends and I made it out not just alive, but fully intact. And Izmir, sewery small aside, was lovely.
Since then, I will admit to having stayed at some dumps, but nothing quite of the caliber of the 50 cent a night spot in Turkey.
Most of my hotel misadventures were while I was on business. (I wouldn’t dream of staying at a dump for pleasure.) One of the most memorable was the Gramercy Park Hotel before it was rehabbed. (This would have been the mid-1980’s.) I shared a suite with my friend and colleague Michele, and the price – it was $50 a piece – should have alerted us that something was amiss. (I believe that a more standard rate at that time would have been $200-250). It was right before Christmas, New York hotels were packed, and our original reservation had gotten screwed up. I had seen ads for the Gramercy Park Hotel in The New Yorker, so – running out of options on a sleety night after an exhausting day – I told corporate travel to put us there.
To this day, Michele and I go back and forth on what was the best part of our stay. The cold, wet plaster that dripped on your shoulder while you were showering? The stretchy turquoise-with-gold-metal fabric that the couch and chairs were covered with? The cigarette burns on all the furniture? The old men in bathrobes on the elevator? Or the fact that, when we checked out, they accidentally charged Michele $500 rather than $50.
But nothing I’ve experienced has come close to what recent guests at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles had to put up with.
British tourist Michael Baugh and his wife said water had only dribbled out of the taps at the downtown Cecil Hotel for days.
On Tuesday, after showering, brushing their teeth and drinking some of the tap water, they headed down to the lobby and found out why.
The body of a Canadian woman had been discovered at the bottom of one of four cisterns on the roof of the historic hotel near Skid Row. The tanks provide water for hotel taps and would have been used by guests for washing and drinking…
[Public health official Terrance] Powell said the water was also used for cooking in the hotel; a coffee shop in the hotel would remain closed and has been instructed to sanitize its food equipment before reopening.
"Our biggest concern is going to be fecal contamination because of the body in the water," Powell said. He said the likelihood of contamination is "minimal" given the large amount of water the body was found in, but the department is being extra cautious. (Source: Huffington Post.)
The Cecil is located on LA’s Skid Row, in an area that’s on the margins of gentrifying. Here’s how they describe themselves.
Centrally located in the heart of historic district downtown, we are just a short stroll or bus ride away from some of Los Angeles best icons including Hollywood and the Santa Monica Pier. This Downtown Los Angeles boutique hotel accommodation offers a variety of stunning guest rooms with choices that suit the needs of the budget-minded, business, and experienced leisure traveler. (Cecil Hotel.)
In the pictures on the web site, the place looks plenty stunning and boutique-y, but they do have a bedbug rap sheet, which would have been enough to keep me the hell out, even if the Skid Row location and $65 price tag wouldn’t have.
And then there’s the body in the cistern…
Primary sympathies, of course, go the family of the young woman who was found dead. They have not yet determined how Elisa Lam died – natural causes or foul play.
Still, one has to feel some sympathy for the Baughs and other “experienced leisure travelers” who took their vitamins with a water chaser, tried to wash their hair, and had a nice, soothing cup of tea in the Cecil’s coffee shop.
How many showers, how much dowsing yourself with isopropyl alcohol, how many gargles with Scope, would it take you before you got yourself back to normal?
Fortunately, there weren’t all that many guests to get themselves back to normal:
By noon Wednesday, the Cecil Hotel had relocated 27 rooms used by guests to another hotel, but 11 rooms remained filled, Powell said. Those who chose to remain in the hotel were required to sign a waiver in which they acknowledged being informed of the health risks and were being provided bottled water, Powell said.
Eleven rooms remained filled? Eleven rooms remained filled?
Just how does that “let’s stay” conversation go?
As opposed to taking the next place option, under the assumption that it just can’t be any worse. Or deciding to sit up all night in the bus station. Or to not eat for a day and use the money to stay in a $100 a night hotel.
I don’t know about you, but I think that I’d have checked out. And this is coming from someone who actually slept in a hotel in Turkey that only cost half a buck per night.
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