The Hudson and Visiting the Big Apple

Posted on February 23, 2003    Posted by John Scalzi

I’ve been rather dreadful about updating the last couple of weeks, and the chances are excellent I will continue to be this week as well. My excuse? Work, baby. Freelance writing is like that: Some weeks you have nothing to do and some weeks you simply never stop working. Last week was one of those weeks (as will be this coming one), compounded by the fact that the usual work I could spread out over a week I had to compress into three days because I was traveling on business. Yes, to all my New York friends, I was in town on Thursday and Friday. Sorry I didn’t let you know. But I was in town to work. Here’s how you know how serious I was about working: I actually stayed in a hotel, rather than crashing at a friend’s place. I knew I wouldn’t have time for actual fun this trip, and staying at someone’s place when you have no real ability to spend any time with them is kind of a jerky thing to do.

My accommodations were interesting, however: I stayed at the Hudson, which is one of the painfully hip hotels owned by Ian Schrager (history buffs will remember him as the less publicly obnoxious co-owner of Studio 54). You can tell how hip it is because it doesn’t actually have a sign outside to let you know where it is — the implication being that if you don’t know where it is, they’re not entirely sure they want you to stay there. I personally cheated in locating it: I knew its address, and the buildings on either side of it had their address on display. Process of elimination works every time. Also, I had been informed that it was a hip and trendy place, so I figured that the chartreuse glass wall acting as a door was something someone might see as hip (or a homage to Tupperware colors of days gone by).

The public areas of the Hudson were indeed crawling with groovy-looking Manhattanites (at least those who come out on Thursday nights at 8:45, which is when I checked in). But considering I was up since 3am due to traveling, I didn’t bother with any of those and went straight up to my room, which revealed itself to be more or less the dimensions of a walk-in closet. If you’ve never been there, you may think I’m joking, but I can back this up — information I’ve read about the place says that most rooms are about 150 square feet, and at least some of that space is allocated for a bathroom (think: linen closet). Most of the space that remained was taken up by the futon bed; it was fortunate that everything I brought to New York could be stored in my backpack, because there was no room for anything else. In short, it was almost exactly like my “coffin single” dormitory room in college, except with nicer wood paneling and fewer pizza cartons on the floor.

This is not exactly a criticism of the Hudson’s rooms, exactly. For who I was (a relatively small guy with who brought one change of clothes) and what I did (went straight to sleep), the room was nice and functional, and when I woke up, everything was at less than arm’s length (and the bathroom, which was cramped even for me, nonetheless had admirable water pressure for the shower, which is really all I want out of a hotel bathroom). So I had a very nice Hudson Hotel experience.

On the other hand, were I taller than 5 foot 8, or traveling with someone else, or planning to stay for more than one night, thereby requiring some place to put a suitcase, and I didn’t give a crap about hip Manhattanites loitering in the lobby, I think I’d probably book a room at a Best Western or something, should such a chain actually be allowed to exist on the isle of Manhattan. I realize this destroys whatever small margin of hipness I may have had, but, you know. I already live in rural Ohio and drive the same crappy 1989 Ford Escort I drove 10 years ago. Hipness is not a thing I have been exactly striving to achieve these days.

I’m really beginning to love New York, though. It’s partly because of the extreme compare and contrast with my usual surroundings; when you spend most of your days having to travel 11 miles to get a Big Mac (yes, really), the idea of popping down to the corner to get takeout sushi is just about the coolest thing ever (I won’t eat sushi in Ohio, incidentally, since I have a rule never to eat raw fish unless I’m within 50 miles of a coastline. You may think this is a stupid rule, but then, I dare you to consume a plate of raw fish where I live). I also simply dig the fact that New York never seems to run out of people. They just keep coming, night and day — millions of busy people walking fast, wearing black and talking on cell phones as they navigate. Compare this to the scene outside my home office window, in which I watched my neighbor drive his lawn tractor down his driveway to pick up his mail.

Part of my admiration for New York is of course rooted in the fact I don’t live there — I just show up now and then, just long enough to enjoy all the walking and takeout sushi without having to hang around and, say, watch the garbage bags piled several feet high on the sidewalk slowly marinate themselves into the pavement. Not to mention (as I so often do) that my mortgage here would translate into sufficient rent in New York to get a basement studio roughly the size of my previously mentioned hotel room — not exactly the best conditions for a growing family.

But that’s fine with me. I like the idea that I think of going to New York as a fun treat, even when all I’m doing while I’m there is working ten hours straight on a corporate messaging campaign. God knows it doesn’t work in reverse. People in New York are appropriately envious of my five acre yard, but when I start mentioning that the nearest department store to me is almost exactly the same distance as the length of Manhattan, and that the department store is a Wal-Mart, they start scanning my biceps for NASCAR-related tattoos and edging toward the nearest door. I don’t blame them in the least.