This one's for you Fico!
From the forthcoming October 15 Weekend edition of the NYT
Affordable San Francisco By GREGORY DICUM
AS befits a city that is both a major tourist and business destination, and one that draws lots of families in for a visit ?? 65 percent of its population was born outside California ?? San Francisco??s range of hotels is at once profuse and varied. The city has more than 32,000 hotel rooms, ranging from $12,500-dollar-a-night suites that are more like mansions to bedbug-infested S.R.O.??s that have always held a certain Bukowskian charm better read about than experienced.
While it??s easy to come here and spend $60 for a cellblock out by the airport, it??s also totally unnecessary: with a little planning, you can find a hotel that is affordable yet also embodies the eclectic charm that has always been San Francisco??s appeal.
The sweet spot is just under $200 a night. In that price range, you can expect a habitable room with distinctive character, friendly, attentive but hands-off service and an occasional funkiness that is best thought of as a reminder of what a deal you??re getting.
You can expect general cleanliness that is not a given further down the scale, plus amenities ?? private bathrooms, bar refrigerators and Wi-Fi ?? that, depending on your perspective, can be either nice touches or absolutely critical features.
You would be hard pressed to find truly bad service in this price range, and labor troubles that have affected San Francisco??s hotels over the past two years have been resolved. Union hotel workers have new contracts, so you don??t have to confront the possibility of crossing a picket line to get to your pillow.
In all, I found 13 hotels that I can confidently recommend for the cash-strapped tourist who is looking for something a little grander than a youth hostel. Following are my top three picks, ranging from an artists?? enclave near Union Square to an urban pied-a-terre for business travelers. (Capsule reviews of the 10 other hotels that made the cut can be found on the facing page.)
Hotel des Arts
The best of the lot is the Hotel des Arts, an unassuming little hotel in a great location, near Union Square and across the street from the gateway to Chinatown. Since 2004, the hotel has been making up for its cramped space by showing bold art curated by the START SOMA gallery. Most of the rooms have been decorated by emerging artists who have brought the bold colors and aggressive graphics of skate and street art to the walls you??ll be sleeping under.
If your aesthetic sensibilities encompass things like a giant squirting pink toe scrawled with a salty epithet, as appears above the bed in the room painted by the Los Angeles graffiti muralist Buff Monster, going to sleep with and waking up to big art is a whole new way to appreciate it.
I stayed in the room by the San Francisco artist Anthony Skirvin, perhaps the most inventive hotel room in the city. If at first the cluster of bulging United States Mint dime bags hanging menacingly over the bed commanded the most attention, it was quickly overshadowed. Next to a photo-mural of a woodsy cabin, a rough-hewn plywood desk and shelves groan with the sort of carefully jumbled bric-a-brac ?? old photos, books, busted electronics, a cutaway model of a kidney ?? you??d find in a dorm room or, more ominously, a recluse??s hideout.
It??s fascinating stuff that invites exploration, and the kind of installation that richly rewards hours spent with it. For me, it included listening to Bob Dylan??s ??Nashville Skyline? album as it was meant to be heard ?? as an actual record, popping and warbling through the single speaker of the room??s vintage record player?? while flipping through World War II-era Life magazines. I rummaged in drawers filled with doll parts and fiddled with the combination on a tantalizingly heavy briefcase before considering mason jars of frightening brown liquid. Mr. Skirvin??s name appears in the phonebook in the room, but when I called, the line had been disconnected.
All this immersive art effectively hides the fact that these are tiny rooms, not much bigger than the comfortable queen beds, and lacking any other furniture. The guests, mostly young couples from all over the world, don??t seem to mind. Breakfast, included with the room, is an affair of passable coffee and bready bagels eaten off paper plates while perched on preschool-like Ikea stools, but the vibe is cheerful.
The Hotel Metropolis
The Metropolis is a hotel for people used to staying in hotels. Guests are a mix of experienced world travelers, people in the city on monthlong work assignments and regulars who use the place as an urban pied-a-terre. Perched at the edge of the gritty Tenderloin neighborhood, the Metropolis??s calm lobby is an oasis from the dingy street outside. A soothing waterfall runs down the wall behind the reception desk, and in a small library on the bright mezzanine, afternoon wine and morning coffee are offered (but no breakfast is served).
I stayed in a room on the 10th (and top) floor, which offered a rare treat: an outdoor deck. From there the view, while not iconically San Franciscan, was impressive enough: it began on Market Street below and extended to the mountains to the south of the city.
That was by far the best feature of the room. The rest was serviceable, decorated in subdued whites and grays, and while clean, was slightly frayed. The hotel has a number of touches that come off as a combination of whimsy and baffling randomness. The magazines in the room ?? current issues of Esquire and other titles ?? were a nice touch, but the flier left on the toilet detailing how different colors are used in marketing was mystifying. More memorable, alas, was the fact that the bathroom ventilation system supplied the scents of other bathrooms in the building, starting with puffs of cigarette smoke and going downhill from there.
If you can take the neighborhood, which includes delights like being panhandled on your walk to breakfast ?? a reminder both annoying and depressing of San Francisco??s most vexing social challenge ?? then this is a great place to be. There are easy transportation connections to the entire city (a cable car turntable is a block away at Powell and Market), and bars, restaurants and shopping are in every direction. The new Westfield San Francisco shopping center is steps away, hopping nightclubs like Crash, Ruby Skye and Mezzanine and underground clubs like Infinite Kaos and the Porn Palace ?? which holds events in a well-appointed dungeon ?? are all within a few blocks.
The hotel also features a small meditation room, and on the ground floor, the new soul food restaurant Farmer Brown has been gaining a solid reputation. If you??re staying here, you??re virtually obligated to stop by at happy hour for one of its mint juleps.
The Queen Anne
Housed in a big wooden Victorian building, freshly painted in pink and cream, the Queen Anne is a quintessentially, almost stereotypically, San Francisco setting. The interior is of warm wood with ornate furniture and richly colored fabrics. The effect is like being in a stage set, which gave me the feeling of being a little under-dressed without a velvet cape. Certainly, the guests ?? mostly American families on vacation wearing the traditional Alcatraz sweat shirts ?? took on the appearance of stagehands as they gathered for late afternoon sherry in the sunlit Victorian parlor.
As one ascends the huge wooden staircase, the hotel??s décor slips subtly from painted lady to drag queen. My spacious room on the fourth, top floor (said to be haunted by the owner of a finishing school that was once in this building) was a gaudy mish-mash of faux Art Deco and tragic craft store goth. The furniture was carved in a cream-and-gold wheat sheaf theme, and a theatrical half-awning loomed over a bed heaped with brocade pillows. A deep red rug set off thick drapes and clusters of plastic grapes and plastic golden cherubs. A table in the bay window would have been the perfect place to write mournful poetry with a quill pen, if only it had been foggy outside.
The hotel is on a rise near Japantown, placing it outside the usual visitor districts, but nonetheless in an interesting neighborhood within easy reach of virtually all the city. From here, you can actually use the cable cars as a mode of transportation, not just a must-do visitor thrill. Skip the unremarkable breakfast buffet included with the room and instead take a four-block walk to Fillmore Street for some of the best cafes and breakfast spots in the city.
The most charming touch at the Queen Anne comes after breakfast: guests can take a free limo ride to any destination within the city. Henry, the affable, talkative chauffeur, has five decades of experience driving these streets, and is quick to tell you that his careful driving has put almost half a million miles on the ancient Lincoln. Rolling at a snail??s pace in the big black car, the windows open on a perfect morning, with Henry up front going on about his days in the Navy ?? this is the San Francisco you came looking for.
VISITOR INFORMATION
As elsewhere, hotel rates in San Francisco vary wildly, sometimes for the same room. Rooms may double in price during peak times. The flip side is that it??s always worth checking in with hotels you might think are out of your range, just to see if your dates are magically off-peak. While there are a few unavoidable spikes, like the summer tourist and the fall convention seasons, different hotels cater to different crowds and may have space even while others nearby are fully booked.
As befits a wired city like San Francisco, going online is a sure way to find a deal. Every hotel worth staying at has its own Web site, many with Web-only offers. If you??re a little more flexible, aggregators like Hotels.com or Kayak.com (or if you??re feeling lucky, Priceline.com) can often lead you to great rates.
But there??s no substitute for a phone call. For the most part, these are boutique hotels, either independent or owned by small, local management companies. In most cases, they occupy buildings that require a bit of spatial creativity. So it pays to quiz the staff members about the relative merits of specific rooms before booking.
All the rates here are the lowest available for double occupancy queen rooms with private baths, and don??t include San Francisco??s 14 percent hotel tax.
Hotel des Arts, 447 Bush Street, (800) 956-4322;
www.sfhoteldesarts.com. Rooms start at $125. However, $294 gets you a week in a room with a shared bath ?? possibly the best hotel deal in the city: you could stay there for more than 10 months for the price of a single night in the penthouse at the nearby Fairmont.
Metropolis Hotel, 25 Mason Street, (800) 553-1900;
www.hotelmetropolis.com. From $99. There is a suite for children, and packages for dogs, and ??Girls Gone Wild,? which includes Champagne, skin care products and calling cards.
Queen Anne Hotel, 1590 Sutter Street, (800)227-3970;
www.queenanne.com. From $99. Rooms available with fireplaces and hot tubs.
Cornell Hotel, 715 Bush Street, (800) 232-9698;
www.cornellhotel.com. From $85 with shared bath; from $110 with private bath. A cozy spot operated by the same family for 40 years; rates include a full breakfast.
Hotel Boheme, 444 Columbus Avenue, (415) 433-9111;
www.hotelboheme.com. Starting at $159. This North Beach hotel trades on its Beat pedigree: Allen Ginsberg often stayed here.
Hotel California, 580 Geary Street, (800) 227-4223;
www.thesavoyhotel.com. Starting at $139. Accessible location near Union Square, plus a frosted tequila shot at check-in.
Hotel Diva, 440 Geary Street, (800) 553-1900;
www.hoteldiva.com. Starting at $129. Coolly slick, with an urbane knowingness: a condom inside the in-room safes.
Hotel Majestic, 1500 Sutter Street, (800) 869-8966;
www.thehotelmajestic.com. Starting at $125. A peaceful Victorian hotel on the shoulder of Pacific Heights.
Hotel Palomar, 12 Fourth Street, (866) 373-4941;
www.hotelpalomar.com. Starting at $200, this is a notch above the others here, with a central downtown location by Market Street, slick décor and doggie wellness packages.
Hotel Triton, 342 Grant Avenue, 800-800-1299;
www.hoteltriton.com. Rooms start at $159, and if they??re available at that price you should snap them up for amenities like a goldfish as a roommate, in-room stereos with iPod docks and a well-appointed fitness room, all in a vibrant newly renovated building. Near Union Square and Chinatown.
Phoenix Hotel, 601 Eddy Street, (800) 248-9466;
www.thephoenixhotel.com. From $139. The ??rock ??n?? roll? hotel near the Civic Center that is a San Francisco take on Los Angeles style; it holds afternoon pool parties on weekends.
San Remo, 2237 Mason Street, (800) 352-7366;
www.sanremohotel.com. Rooms from $55, but the real gem at this historic North Beach hotel is the penthouse suite, starting at only $175. It??s usually booked three months in advance.
York Hotel, 940 Sutter Street, (800) 808-9675;
www.yorkhotel.com. This hotel, on Nob Hill, was a setting for Alfred Hitchcock??s ??Vertigo.? Stay in the room Kim Novak lived in during the shooting, starting at $109. Otherwise, rooms start at $89.
GREGORY DICUM is the author of ??Window Seat Europe,? about reading the landscape from 35,000 feet in the air, to be published this month by Chronicle Books.
