I've been thinking a lot about hotels lately. I recently discovered that there are numerous affordable hotels to be found in New York City, which makes the prospect of visiting my former city both very attractive and doable. I'm not even talking about crazy-awful fleabag hotels, or motels in Weehawken. I'm talking well-designed, safe, hip, not-chain, in-town Manhattan (sometimes Brooklyn) accommodations. That a working girl like me can afford. Especially if she takes one person with her.
I recently availed myself of one of these hotels, and when I told one of my New York friends about it, she said, "Great! What's the equivalent if I want to visit you in Pittsburgh?" Oh, this question made my head spin. And spin and spin. Not only do I want my friend to come visit me affordably (sure, she'll probably end up staying on my couch, but that's not the point)--I want starving artists and students and working people who DON'T have best friends here to be able to visit Pittsburgh. I want there to be the kind of hotels that allow--and entice--visitors to our fair city to step out the front door of their hotel and explore our streets, our neighborhoods, our architecture, our hilly views; our
art galleries, our
reading series, our
film festivals; our
bookshops, our
cafes, our wide variety of
restaurants. And I want all of this to be available to people who CAN'T afford to stay at a pricey bed & breakfast or a downtown highrise.
What's the current scene of affordable hotels in Pittsburgh? Mainly, chain motels in Monroeville or near the airport. Nevermind that the kind of city-dwelling visitor I'm talking about won't want to shell out to rent a car--even if they had a car, is that how you want to show off our city? Sending someone to a chain accommodation that feels like any other city (a wasted opportunity to show off Pittsburgh's uniqueness at best, a depressing first view of the city at worst) and then asking them to get in their car and drive to Destination A, B, and C? Thus again potentially depriving them of discovering the unique
incidentals of our city.
What I'm getting at, in part, is that I want people to start moving to Pittsburgh--for reasons other than the most obvious--job transfer, family members, college or grad school. I want people to move here just because it's an awesome and affordable city in which to live, work, and make art. And I want a steady stream of visitors, creative tourists, and urbanites who 1.) may decide to move here themselves based on gaining a FEEL for the city, or 2.) will become ambassadors of Pittsburgh's revitalization, carrying the word to others who may want to move here.
Pittsburgh, with its "every neighborhood revitalizing at once" plan needs a more dense, in-city-limits population to sustain its visions of growth. (To my mind, the idea that people are going to drive in from the suburbs to destination-eat, -shop, etc., at all of these new venues is not "it," or at least not all of it.) Meanwhile, the recession has people in harder-hit, pricier-housing cities rethinking their own plans. It may be the perfect moment in history for Pittsburgh to gain some residents, fallout from this major upset in US economics. But not if those folks can't visit here (and really
discover Pittsburgh) first.
My pondering about hotels in Pittsburgh has emerged from a longer-term set of observations that Pittsburgh has--for so much of its history--been a scorned or misunderstood city ("Hell with the lid off"), and that has resulted in a behavior which can be the opposite of inviting to outsiders. Think of the Pittsburgh reputation for giving idiosyncratic directions: "Take a left where the Giant Eagle used to be, go straight, then take a right where Isaly's used to be." This, my friends, is not the way to help an out-of-towner learn their way around the city. I often hear the caveat to this apocryphal story as, "But more often than not, that same person giving the baffling directions will offer, 'Follow me, I'm going that way.' " Is the kindness of Pittsburghers enough to make up for the confusing navigability? In some realm, yes. But I'm greedy, I want it all. I want not only good neighbors and kind strangers, but good signage, well-designed pedestrian walkways (and bike paths) that connect between every neighborhood and bike trail, obvious bus protocol and safe bus stops, and hotels that bring outsiders smoothly into this web of easily-navigable intra-city connectivity.
So, Pittsburgh's hotels. The
Eden House Short Stay in Lawrenceville is one of the few hotels in town that meets the standards of what I'm talking about here. Its lowest-priced rooms are affordable, and get more and more affordable if one stays for more than one night, or if two are traveling together. Eden House is within walking distance to a great stretch of restaurants, shops, and the Design Zone on Butler Street; or the other direction to Pittsburgh's Little Italy with bars, cafes, and restaurants; or to the Penn Avenue Arts District; or to Polish Hill's music venues.
The Priory on the North Side may be the next thing that comes close; singles can stay in a $100 room with a single bed, within decent walking distance to
AIR, the
Warhol Museum, the
New Hazlett Theater, the
Mattress Factory, and
City of Asylum houses and events, although I would advise visitors to take a cab to and from the Priory area at night. And good luck getting a cab in Pittsburgh.
Meanwhile,
The Pittsburgh Hostel, formerly located in the dangerous neighborhood of Allentown (but defunct for 6 or 7 years), is seeking a new home. My highest hopes would be that the visionaries of Pittsburgh city planning (be they grass roots types or the powers that be) would see the need to help get Real Funding for this, and to think seriously about a great location for it. My hope (as echoed on the
Hostel Project's website) would be that people could see the opportunity this presents for Pittsburgh: While everyone's lamenting the brain-drain and "the young people who leave Pittsburgh," why not recognize that creative, city-hopping young travelers could be some of our very best ambassadors? If you make a hostel in a location forced only by pricing (such as Allentown), I predict it will be a success for no one. Rather, make a great hostel in a location that can showcase the city's liveliest creative efforts, and you will create a veritable factory of young people who will bring stories, writings, and photographs to other cities, spreading the word far and wide that Pittsburgh is a great place to be. In other words, don't underestimate the power of the young and the cash-strapped to help remake a city. Wasn't it these folks who brought fame and fortune to such now-meccas as Seattle, Austin, Portland (OR), and Minneapolis? A city's true desirability comes from the ground up, not the top down. Make it easy for people to visit Pittsburgh, and the city will reap the rewards. Conversely, the harder it is for people to visit, the more we'll have this closed-loop, echo-chamber thinking among residents that vacillates between "Pittsburgh is the greatest city ever!!!!!!!!" and "No one would want to move here; we'll always be inferior."
Finally, I want to applaud artist and curator
Elise Adibi, who has organized the
Gold in Braddock show that opens May 1, 2010 at
UnSmoke in
Braddock. When planning the show, Adibi made a deliberate decision to invite artists from New York, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia (in addition to a few Pittsburgh-affiliated folks); the show was designed to explore the theme of GOLD. A number of the out-of-town artists pondered the theme in relation to Braddock, visiting that borough in advance of the show as they created their final piece. Even more of the artists are expected to travel here for the show's opening. In this way, Adibi consciously contributed to a very active form of art tourism--bringing outsiders in to witness Pittsburgh, to enter the region's conversation, to support the Pittsburgh economy, and to leave as ambassadors of an emerging Pittsburgh. One that is not reliant
only on the famous universities, hospitals, or sports franchises for its visitor traffic.
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